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SAINT ANDREWS, Scotland — Tiger Woods arrived at the crazy historic 150th British Open and brought his voice, all earned, earned and forged. He sounded statesmanlike Tuesday morning as he spoke without hesitation about the glaring, glaring issue plaguing his sport: the breakaway, Saudi-funded LIV Tour. He even recoiled from the idea of loud music.
He began earlier in his press conference by asking a question about the decision of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews to end Greg Norman’s involvement due to the distracting noise that Norman’s presence might cause given his chairmanship of the LIV Tour.
“Obviously the R&A have their opinions, their decisions and their decision,” Woods said. “Greg has done some things that I don’t think are in the best interest of our game, and we’re going back to probably the most historic and traditional place in our sport. I believe it is the right thing to do.”
He elaborated a few answers later: “I know what the PGA Tour means and what we’ve done and what the tour has given us, the ability to pursue our careers and earn what we get and the trophies that we’ve been able to play for and the history that was part of this game. I know Greg tried to do this (competitive tour) back in the early 90s. It didn’t work then, and now he’s trying to make it work.
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“I still don’t see how that’s in the best interest of the game. What the European Tour and the PGA Tour mean and what they’ve done, and all the pros — all the governing bodies of the game of golf and all the major championships, how they run it. I think they see it differently than Greg sees it.”
And he didn’t flinch in his calm response to a question about the group of players who have already defected, which includes major winners Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Patrick Reed and Louis Oosthuizen.
“I don’t agree with that,” Woods said. “I think what they’ve done is they’ve turned their backs on what allowed them to get to this position. Some players never even had a chance to experience it. They went straight from the amateur ranks right into this organization and never really had a chance to play here and get a feel for what it’s like to play on tour or play in some big events. And who knows what will happen in the near future with the points in the world ranking, the criteria for entering major championships. The governing body will have to figure this out.
“Some of these players may never get a chance to play in major championships. … We don’t know that for sure yet. This decision rests with all major championship authorities. But it’s possible that some players will never, ever get a chance to play in a major championship, never get a chance to experience this right here, (or) walk the fairways at Augusta National. I just don’t get that for me.
“I understand what Jack (Nicklaus) and Arnold (Palmer) did (when they started the PGA Tour in the late 1960s) because playing professional golf at the tour level versus a club professional (level) is different and I understand that the transition and that move and the recognition that a touring pro versus a club pro is.
“But what these players are doing for guaranteed money, what’s the incentive to train? What’s the incentive to go out there and earn it in the dirt? You just get a lot of money upfront and play a few events and play 54 holes. They play loud music and have all these different vibes.”
He trolls so gently.
“I can understand that 54 holes is almost like a mandate when you get to the Senior Tour. The boys are a little older and a little more puffy. But when you’re at that young age and some of these kids – they’re really kids that have come from amateur golf to this organization – the 72-hole tests are part of it… It would be sad to see some of these young kids never get a chance to experience it and experience what we get a chance to experience and walk these hallowed grounds and play in these championships.”
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Woods declared himself “very optimistic” about the future of the sport, noting “the biggest boom in golf right now because of covid” and how golf has become an outdoor respite from indoor isolation. “Just look at the tour,” he said, “the average age is getting younger and younger and they’re just getting better earlier and faster and winning at an earlier age.
He spoke at length about the holiest of these places, St Andrews, as it celebrates an anniversary with the number ‘150’ omnipresent on shirts and signs around. “It’s my favorite,” he said of the course, recalling playing the 1995 event as an amateur alongside Ernie Els and Peter Jacobsen on the first two days. He talked about how timelessness trumped technology, so with Tuesday’s rough wind, “On 10 I hit a 6-iron 120 yards.”
And he spoke like an adult when he said, “And because the fairways are fast and hard, it allows players who are older to drive the ball there and have a chance.”
This course won’t challenge his body the way the tough waves at Augusta National at the Masters in April or the slopes of Southern Hills at Tulsa at the PGA Championship in May did. In those cases, walking surpassed golf as a challenge to the lower part of his right leg, damaged and soaked in hardware after his horrific car accident in California in February 2021.
“It’s still not easy,” he said. “Of course, the slopes are not steep by any means. They are not – the declines are not steep. But the bumps are what I still find difficult. I have a lot of hardware in my leg. He said: “Playing Augusta, I didn’t know. My leg was in no condition to play 72 holes. He just ran out of gas. But it’s different now. It got a lot stronger, a lot better.”
When he once came here and ordered a wooden board in his room to stiffen the mattress for his back, he said, now he orders “more ice.”
Finally, he answered another question fit for a statesman, about whether he believed the new generation shared his judgment of history. And while he said they can check history on their phones these days, he shared more of the golf history he knows. “I saw Bob Charles out there on 18 hitting,” he said. “I think he won in ’63 (exactly) or something. Just to be able to see that in person, live, gosh, it was so special. I just hope the kids appreciate that.” He concluded: “Nothing is ever given to you. You have to go out there and earn it, and I earned it through the dirt. I’m very proud of that.”
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