A longtime friend of Tiger Woods has painted a harrowing picture of the legendary golfer’s physical status ahead of the 2024 Masters.
Notah Begay III, who has remained friends with Woods since they played together at Stanford, is now an analyst for NBC Sports, and spoke to reporters on a conference call this week about how Woods is seeking to compete at Augusta next week.
“He’s trying to formulate a strategy and approach that he can work within given the constraints that he’s presented with. And he’s got some constraints,” Begay said Wednesday, as covered by USA Today. “He’s got zero mobility in that left ankle and really has low-back challenges now, which he knew he was going to have.”
The two spoke at a junior golf tournament that Begay hosts, and in which Woods’ son Charlie competed.
Woods, 48, was said to have relayed to Begay that “my ankle doesn’t move. So something’s going to take the stress. I mean, the stress is going to transfer somewhere else.”
Woods was in a debilitating single-car accident in early 2021 in which his leg was nearly amputated.
While it was miraculous that Woods was even able to return to the golf course in the first place, he has been noticeably hobbled in each competition where he’s participated ever since.
“For the past couple months, he’s been trying to find a way to recover,” Begay continued on the conference call.
“He can play the golf. We always knew the question was going to be ‘Can he walk the 72 (holes)?’ That’s still up in the air. But can he recover, from one round to the next? That’s the biggest question that I really don’t know and he’s not going to know either until he gets out there and figures out whether the way he’s prepared for this year’s Masters is going to work for him.”
Woods withdrew from The Masters last year on Sunday morning before his rain-suspended third round was set to resume.
Woods has undergone ankle surgery since but has only competed in two PGA events since — finishing 18th out of 20 competitors in the Hero World Invitational in December and withdrawing from the Genesis Invitational in February due to flu-like symptoms.
Woods is 130-1 to win the Masters in the latest odds at DraftKings.