He left them wanting more, and laughing
Tiger Woods has 80 wins on the PGA Tour and only one man – the great Sam Snead – has more. Earlier this year, you would have been hard-pressed to predict he would ever win again. Now, you’d confidently claim he can reach Snead’s 82 and go beyond it.
Woods won his first title in five years when he claimed the TOUR Championship in Atlanta, Georgia. He finished three clear of Billy Horschel and had galleries in their thousands, and millions watching worldwide, following his every move.
I’ve never seen anything like this! #TigerWoods pic.twitter.com/ZlnXUNQjJF
— Teryn Gregson (@teryngregson) September 23, 2018
Asked about the noise coming from the galleries, Woods commented:
“The fans and the commotion… It was similar to, if you guys remember, in 1997 at the Western coming down the last hole. That was a little bit like that. But not to this fevered pitch.
“This was different. I guess it’s different now because the art of clapping is gone, right? You can’t clap when you’ve got a cell phone in your hand! So people yell, and they were yelling; they’re going to be hoarse.”
The 42-year-old was close to retiring just over 18 months ago and has undergone four surgeries on his back in the past few years.
“Sam is still ahead of me,” Woods said in his post-round press conference.
“I’ve still got, I feel like, a chance to play some more golf and maybe I’ll keep chipping away at that number and maybe surpass it.
“But I just think that what I’ve gone through and what I’ve dealt with, I’ve gotten lucky, to be honest with you. I’ve gotten very lucky. I’m not playing a full-contact sport or I’ve got to move people around in that regard. At 42 years old with a fused lower spine; that’s not going to happen.”
Woods said he knows his late father, Earls Woods, would have been proud of his win and remarked that his children finally know that he is half decent at this golf game. The struggle has made the victory taste all the sweeter.
“It means a lot more to me now in the sense because I didn’t know if I’d ever be out here again playing — doing this again. I don’t know, 20 years ago, hell, I thought I was going to play for another 30 years. That’s just the way golf is. You can play until you’re 70 years old. You see these guys on the Champions Tour playing tournament golf at 70. There was a point in time I didn’t know if I’d ever do this again.
“So yeah, I appreciate it a little bit more than I did because I don’t take it for granted that I’m going to have another decade, two decades in my future of playing golf at this level.”
Woods had still not spoken with his children, due to his media duties, and got up after his 20 minutes in the media tent to make a special phone call home. He would be flying out a few hours later towards France for the Ryder Cup.
Before he left, though, the 14-time Major winner was asked how the world would react after ‘you’ve probably broken the internet’? He responded:
“Well, when I came out here, there was no internet!”
Fair play.
