Tiger Woods suffered a setback in his back, revealing on Tuesday that he recently had a fifth surgery that will prevent him from starting the year until after the West Coast Swing on the PGA Tour.
Woods will not play the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines next week, which he won seven times, most recently in 2013. He also won the US Open in 2008 at Torrey Pines, which hosts the US Open again in June.
He will also lose the Genesis Invitational on February 18th and 21st on the Riviera, where he hosts the tournament.
In a statement from its TGR Foundation, that Woods also tweeted, he did not say when he underwent microdiscetomy surgery. It was to remove a fragment of pressurized disc that was causing nerve pain during the PNC championship last month that he played with 11-year-old son Charlie.
Doctors said the operation was successful and predicted a full recovery, according to the statement.
“I’m looking forward to starting training and I’m focused on getting back on tour,” said Woods.
The year that Woods last won at Torrey Pines was when back problems started to arise. He had his first microdysectomy just before the 2014 Masters, and then had two more in September and October 2015.
The fourth surgery in April 2017 was important, to fuse the lower part of the spine. Woods’ return was successful, leading to a victory in the 2018 Tour Championship – the first in five years – and he ended up winning the Masters in 2019, his 15th tournament and the first in 11 years.
When he won the Zozo Championship in Japan in the fall of 2019, he tied Sam Snead’s career win record with No. 82, and the record seemed to be just a matter of time. But he has never been in serious contention for the past year and lost an entire month to a minor back problem before the golf course ended with the COVID-19 pandemic.
When he returned in July, he did not end up better than a 37th draw at the PGA Championship in seven tournaments he played. In six of those events where he made the cut, he finished 107 combined shots out of the lead.
He turned 45 at the end of last year, and his surgery count now stands at 10 – five on his left knee, five on his back.
Woods said that after drawing 38th in defense of the Masters title he has more difficult days than others.
“My body has moments when it just doesn’t work like it used to,” he said in November. “No matter how hard I try, things just don’t work as they did before, and no matter how hard I push and ask for this body, it just doesn’t work sometimes. Yes, it is sometimes more difficult than others to be motivated.
“Yes, because things hurt and I have to deal with things that I have never had to deal with before.”
He played the PNC championship with his son and finished seventh.
Woods plans to be on the Riviera as the tournament host. The statement said only that he would miss Torrey Pines and Riviera. He hasn’t been as predictable with his schedule in recent years, leading to the Masters on April 8-11.
The World Golf Championship event held in Mexico recently moved to Florida and follows the West Coast Swing. Next up is Bay Hill, where Woods won eight times (all before his back surgeries), but skipped the past two years, and The Players Championship. There will be three more tournaments before the Masters.