Tiger Woods’s recovery is slow.
He was only recently cleared to begin chipping and putting and on Tuesday at the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas, he suggested his recovery from disk replacement surgery has been tedious as he makes yet another attempt to return to competitive golf sometime in 2026.
Woods, who turns 50 on Dec. 30, had his seventh back procedure on Oct. 10. In his first public comments since the surgery—and since having Achilles surgery in March—Woods gave no timetable for a return, gave no hints as to if he will play senior golf with the PGA Tour Champions or if he will even play the Genesis Invitational, which he hosts, in February.
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Woods did rule out this month’s PNC Championship—which he’s played every year since 2020 with his son, Charlie—and said he won’t be available for the early part of the TGL schedule in January. Woods’s Jupiter Links team is scheduled to play this season on Jan. 13, Jan. 20, Feb. 2, March 1 and March 3.
Woods said the rehabilitation for his disk replacement is “not as fast as I’d like it to be. It was a good thing to do. Something I needed to have happen. It just takes time and dedication to the rehab process.
“I’m just looking forward to getting back to playing again. Let me do that and then figure out what the schedule will be. I’m a ways away from that part of it and that type of commitment level. I’ve been through this before, step by step, and once I get through that, then I can assess.”
Woods last played in an official tournament at the 2024 British Open at Royal Troon. In September 2024, he had a procedure on his spine that was a level above his spinal fusion surgery from 2017. That operation was possibly career-ending, but it allowed Woods to return a year later and he eventually won three more times, including the 2019 Masters.
But since then—in addition to the 2021 car crash that severely damaged his left leg and has made walking difficult—Woods also had two more procedures to address lower back pain, including the disk replacement.
Woods only played the indoor TGL league in 2025, but offered no timetable for returning to it in 2026. / GREG LOVETT/PALM BEACH POST / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
The only golf Woods played in 2025 was the TGL indoor tech league. He was scheduled to play the Genesis Invitational but withdrew after the death of his mother, Kultida, in early February. Then, when apparently ramping up to try and get ready for the Masters, he suffered the Achilles injury that knocked him out for the golf season.
“It just regressed,” Woods said of his back. “I had a procedure last year in September to buy me a little bit of time. Blew out my Achilles. As I was trying to come back, my back was feeling wonky. Did an MRI and it didn’t look very good.”
That is what led to the disk replacement, a procedure that typically has a three-month recovery that would at the least take Woods into mid-January.
“I just started to chip and putt,” he said. “I just started to lift in the gym. I just started this process. A disk replacement takes time. Not as long as spinal fusion, thankfully.
“I’d like to just come back to playing golf again. I haven’t played in a long time. It’s just been a tough year. A lot of things on and off the course. My passion is just to play and I haven’t done that in a long time.”
Asked about the possibility of playing PGA Tour Champions golf, Woods said he’s barely looked at the schedule. He said he’s been involved with a new committee that he’s been appointed to by CEO Brian Rolapp to help figure out future PGA Tour scheduling plans beyond 2026.
“I need to figure this out with my back and my body,” he said. “As I start to get more explosive and find out what I’ve got, I can assess here I might play and could play.”
In addition to several questions about his Future Competition Committee role with the Tour, Woods fielded a question about a potential Ryder Cup captaincy in 2027 and said “I haven’t been asked.”
Woods was asked to be the 2025 captain and put off a decision until the summer of 2024 before the PGA of America named Keegan Bradley to the position.
The Hero World Challenge has been played at Albany in the Bahamas since 2015 and Woods’s association with the event goes back to 1999, when he launched it to benefit his foundation. The 20-player field this year includes two-time defending champion Scottie Scheffler.
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