Tiger Woods is back at the Masters, along with his slight limp. It is not every step, every minute. But it is there. And as much hardware as he has in his mended right leg, the limp figures to be with him for as long as he plays the sport he once dominated.
As for how long he keeps playing Augusta National? That’s a little harder to foresee.
Woods conceded that each trip to the Masters – at his age (47) and with surgeries on both legs and his back over the past decade – makes him wonder if it’s going to be the last one.
“I don’t know how many more I have in me,” Woods said Tuesday.
This will be his 25th time playing the Masters, and Woods still is surprised there was a 24th. He was still recovering last year from crashing his car off a suburban Los Angeles road at speeds close to 140 km/h, crushing bones in his right leg so badly he said doctors contemplated amputation.
“I didn’t know if I was going to play again at that time,” Woods said. “For some reason, everything kind of came together and I pushed it a little bit and I was able to make the cut, which was nice.”
Woods has an enormous presence at Augusta National because of his impact on the game, not to mention the five green jackets he has won, the last one in 2019. A year ago, the internet lit up with aviation tracking sites that followed his flight plan to the club for a pre-Masters scouting report.
And yet now he gives this Masters a sense of normalcy.
Golf has been consumed with the great divide between the establishment and Saudi-funded LIV Golf, which has 18 players at the Masters who are suspended from playing regular PGA Tour events. There is speculation how players on both sides will get along.
And then there is Woods at the Masters. Azaleas and dogwoods are in bloom. Thousands follow him in practice rounds. And Thursday will bring a familiar refrain from the first tee: “Fore please, Tiger Woods driving.”
From there, no one is sure what to expect, Woods included.
“He looks good,” said Rory McIlroy, who played Monday with Woods, 63-year-old Fred Couples and 20-year-old Tom Kim. “You know, if he didn’t have to walk up these hills and have all of that, I’d say he’d be one of the favourites. He’s got all of the shots. It’s just that physical limitation of walking 72 holes, especially on a golf course as hilly as this.”
Woods has matured, through time and too many surgeries, from the relentless champion to a guardian willing to pass along some of the local knowledge he picked up as a younger man from Couples and Raymond Floyd, from Seve Ballesteros and Jose Maria Olazabal.
He still wants to compete. There would be no point in staying after the Masters Club dinner Tuesday night if that were not the case. And he still thinks he can find a little magic.
He has said everywhere he has played over the past year – a total of 11 rounds in four tournaments, one of them a 36-hole exhibition in a cart with his son – that hitting shots isn’t the problem. It’s getting to the next one.
“Yeah, mobility, it’s not where I would like it,” Woods said. “I’ve said to you guys before, I’m very lucky to have this leg – it’s mine. Yes, it has been altered and there’s some hardware in there, but it’s still mine. It has been tough and will always be tough. The ability and endurance of what my leg will do going forward will never be the same. I understand that.
“That’s why I can’t prepare and play as many tournaments as I like, but that’s my future, and that’s okay. I’m okay with that.”
Woods found a small victory in just playing last year, and making the cut was a bonus. He has never missed the cut at the Masters as a pro, and that streak is on the line again. Then again, he showed up at Riviera in February for his first PGA Tour event in seven months and played all four rounds.
“I think my game is better than it was last year at this particular time,” he said. “I think my endurance is better. But it aches a little bit more than it did last year just because at that particular time when I came back, I really had not pushed it that often. And I had a little window in which I did push it and was able to come back.
“I just have to be cognizant of how much I can push it,” he said. “Like Rory was saying, I can hit a lot of shots but the difficulty for me is going to be the walking going forward. I wish it could be easier.”
So why bother showing up?
Woods long has said there’s no point in showing up if he didn’t think he could win. He teased with a 67 in the third round at Riviera. The shots are still in there. And he knows Augusta National better than any championship course he plays.
He pointed to Couples, who swings freely and walks casually, and still can hold his own. Couples shares the record with Gary Player for most consecutive cuts made at the Masters with 23. Woods can tie them if he makes it to the weekend.
Woods was asked if he felt the younger players to whom he passes along some of his knowledge perceive him as any kind of a threat. In his 13 PGA Tour events since he won his record-tying 82nd title on the PGA Tour, his best finish is a tie for ninth. That was before the car crash.
“Whether I’m a threat to them or not, who knows?” he said. “People probably didn’t think I was a threat in 2019, either, but kind of turned out okay.”
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — DeMar DeRozan scored 27 points in a record-setting performance and the Sacramento Kings beat the Toronto Raptors 122-107 on Wednesday night.
Domantas Sabonis added 17 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds for his third triple-double of the season for Sacramento. He shot 6 for 6 from the field and 5 for 5 at the free-throw line.
Keegan Murray chipped in with 22 points and 12 rebounds, and De’Aaron Fox scored 21.
The 35-year-old DeRozan has scored at least 20 points in each of his first eight games with the Kings, breaking a franchise mark established by Chris Webber when he reached 20 in his first seven games with Sacramento in 1999.
DeRozan spent the past three seasons with the Chicago Bulls. The six-time All-Star also has played for Toronto and San Antonio during his 16-year NBA career.
RJ Barrett had 23 points to lead the Raptors. Davion Mitchell scored 20 in his first game in Sacramento since being traded to Toronto last summer.
Takeaways
Raptors: Toronto led for most of the first three quarters before wilting in the fourth. The Raptors were outscored 33-14 in the final period.
Kings: Fox played strong defense but struggled again shooting from the floor as he is dealing with a finger injury. Fox went 5 for 17 and just 2 of 8 on 3-pointers. He is 5 for 25 from beyond the arc in his last three games.
Key moment
The Kings trailed 95-89 early in the fourth before going on a 9-0 run that gave them the lead for good. DeRozan started the spurt with a jumper, and Malik Monk scored the final seven points.
Key stat
Sabonis had the eighth game in the NBA since at least 1982-83 with a triple-double while missing no shots from the field or foul line. The previous player to do it was Josh Giddey for Oklahoma City against Portland on Jan. 11.
Up next
Raptors: At the Los Angeles Clippers on Saturday night, the third stop on a five-game trip.
VANCOUVER – The Vancouver Whitecaps are one win away from moving on to the next round of the Major League Soccer playoffs.
To get there, however, the Whitecaps will need to pull off the improbable by defeating the powerhouse Los Angeles FC for a second straight game.
Vancouver blanked the visitors 3-0 on Sunday to level their best-of-three first-round playoff series at a game apiece. As the matchup shifts back to California for a decisive Game 3 on Friday, the Whitecaps are looking for a repeat performance, said striker Brian White.
“We take the good and the bad from last game, learn from what we could have done better and go to LAFC with confidence and, obviously, with a whole lot of respect,” he said.
“We know that we can go there and give them a very good fight and hopefully come away with a win.”
The winner of Friday’s game will face the No. 4-seed Seattle Sounders in a one-game Western Conference semifinal on Nov. 23 or 24.
The ‘Caps finished the regular season eighth in the west with a 13-13-8 record and have since surprised many with their post-season play.
First, Vancouver trounced its regional rivals, the Portland Timbers, 5-0 in a wild-card game. Then, the squad dropped a tightly contested 2-1 decision to the top-seeded L.A. before posting a decisive home victory on Sunday.
Vancouver has scored seven goals this post-season, second only to the L.A. Galaxy (nine). Vancouver also leads the league in expected goals (6.84) through the playoffs.
No one outside of the club expected the Whitecaps to win when the Vancouver-L. A. series began, said defender Ranko Veselinovic.
“We’ve shown to ourselves that we can compete with them,” he said.
Now in his fifth season with the ‘Caps, Veselinovic said Friday’s game will be the biggest he’s played for the team.
“We haven’t had much success in the playoffs so, definitely, this is the one that can put our season on another level,” he said.
This is the second year in a row the Whitecaps have faced LAFC in the first round of the playoffs and last year, Vancouver was ousted in two straight games.
The team isn’t thinking about revenge as it prepares for Game 3, White said.
“More importantly than (beating LAFC), we want to get to the next round,” he said. “LAFC’s a very good team. We’ve come up against them a number of times in different competitions and they always seem to get the better of us. So it’d be huge for us to get the better of them this time.”
Earning a win last weekend required slowing L.A.’s transition game and limiting offensive opportunities for the team’s big stars, including Denis Bouanga.
Those factors will be important again on Friday, said Whitecaps head coach Vanni Sartini, who warned that his team could face a different style of game.
“I think the most important thing is going to be to match their intensity at the beginning of the game,” he said. “Because I think they’re going to come at us a million miles per hour.”
The ‘Caps will once again look to captain Ryan Gauld for some offensive firepower. The Scottish attacking midfielder leads MLS in playoff goals with five and has scored in all three of Vancouver’s post-season appearances this year.
Gearing up for another do-or-die matchup is exciting, Gauld said.
“Knowing it’s a winner-takes-all kind of game, being in that kind of environment is nice,” he said. “It’s when you see the best in players.”
LAFC faces the bulk of the pressure heading into the matchup, Sartini said, given the club’s appearances in the last two MLS Cup finals and its 2022 championship title.
“They’re supposed to win and we are not,” the coach said. “But it’s beautiful to have a little bit of pressure on us, too.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
Each PWHL team operated under its city name, with players wearing jerseys featuring the league’s logo in its inaugural season before names and logos were announced last month.
The Toronto Sceptres, Montreal Victoire, Ottawa Charge, Boston Fleet, Minnesota Frost and New York Sirens will start the PWHL’s second season on Nov. 30 with jerseys designed to reflect each team’s identity and to be sold to the public as replicas.
Led by PWHL vice-president of brand and marketing Kanan Bhatt-Shah, the league consulted Creative Agency Flower Shop to design the jerseys manufactured by Bauer, the PWHL said Thursday in a statement.
“Players and fans alike have been waiting for this moment and we couldn’t be happier with the six unique looks each team will don moving forward,” said PWHL senior vice president of business operations Amy Scheer.
“These jerseys mark the latest evolution in our league’s history, and we can’t wait to see them showcased both on the ice and in the stands.”
Training camps open Tuesday with teams allowed to carry 32 players.
Each team’s 23-player roster, plus three reserves, will be announced Nov. 27.
Each team will play 30 regular-season games, which is six more than the first season.
Minnesota won the first Walter Cup on May 29 by beating Boston three games to two in the championship series.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
