Chapter 85

The 104th PGA Championship

Southern Hills Country Club

Tulsa, Oklahoma

May 19–22, 2022

The week before the PGA Championship, three members of the ESPN golf broadcast team highlight the lingering image of the 2022 Masters—Tiger’s smile.

“Watching him walk off with that smile on his face Sunday at 78 and 78,” host Scott Van Pelt says, “that’s the first time I would think that 78, 78 on the weekend of a major would be a smile. But I felt like that smile reflected the satisfaction of, man, I got here. I got here. I played well enough to be here on the weekend. Did I play how I wanted? No, but I’m here, man, and I’m playing.”

Tiger is forty-six years old, four years younger than Phil Mickelson was last year on May 23, 2021, when he won the 103rd PGA Championship at South Carolina’s Kiawah Island Golf Resort. Mickelson was number 115 on the Official World Golf Ranking when, at age fifty—less than a month from fifty-one—he became the oldest player ever to win a major on the PGA Tour.

Mickelson won $2,160,000 that day. “Tiger has been the instigator,” Mickelson said back in April of 2014, crediting Tiger with the dramatic rise in prize money at PGA Tour events. “He’s the one that’s really propelled the bus because he’s brought increased ratings, increased sponsors, increased interest and we have all benefitted.”

But it’s no longer enough for Mickelson. On October 27, 2021, came the announcement of LIV Golf, a new professional golf tour named after the Roman-numeral version of 54 (also a nod to the three rounds, or fifty-four holes, of golf allotted to each tournament). Greg Norman was named CEO, with Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson rumored to be marquee players in the spring 2022 schedule.

On February 2, 2022, Mickelson was playing in the Saudi International when he ignited controversy by bashing what he called the PGA Tour’s “obnoxious greed.” On February 17, Mickelson’s biographer, Alan Shipnuck, broke the news that although Mickelson dismissed LIV as “sportswashing” on the part of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), his involvement in the upstart league was far deeper than anyone suspected.

During a November 2021 phone call, Mickelson had told Shipnuck that launching an offensive against the PGA, the nonprofit organization that had brought him wealth and fame, outweighed his ethical concerns about the Saudi regime.

“They’re scary motherf—ers to get involved with,” he said. “Why would I even consider it? Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates. They’ve been able to get by with manipulative, coercive, strong-arm tactics because we, the players, had no recourse” is his rationalization. “The Saudi money has finally given us that leverage. I’m not sure I even want [LIV] to succeed, but just the idea of it is allowing us to get things done with the [PGA] Tour.”

Though Mickelson later apologized for his “reckless” choice of words, the damage was done. Sponsors—including Amstel Light, Callaway Golf Company, and KPMG—quickly dropped him, and the PGA Tour quietly suspended Mickelson ahead of the Masters.

Nevertheless, the PGA lists both Tiger and Mickelson in the field in May of 2022, ahead of the PGA Championship, until Mickelson withdraws, on May 13. Like all PGA Championship winners, Mickelson has a lifetime exemption into the event, but he won’t be defending the title he won last year.

“It’s always disappointing when the defending champion is not here,” Tiger says, but he gives no explanation for Mickelson’s U-turn.

When the first LIV Golf event is announced for June, Tiger takes apart its model of guaranteed appearance fees. With $25 million purses, the earnings of even the lowest finisher will rival the winnings of a top-ten finisher at a PGA event.

“I understand different viewpoints,” Tiger says, “but I believe in legacies. I believe in major championships. I believe in big events, comparisons to historical figures of the past. There’s plenty of money out here. The tour is growing. But it’s just like any other sport, you have to go out there and earn it.”

The four-time PGA Championship winner (1999, 2000, 2006, 2007) has dedicated the past five weeks to physical conditioning. “The first mountain I climbed was Everest,” Tiger says of his endurance test at Augusta National in April. Now “I feel like I can [win]—definitely. I just have to go out there and do it. Starts on Thursday and I’ll be ready.”

His optimism is short-lived. In the first two rounds, he scores 74–69. On Saturday, the flashes of pain that were visible during the second round noticeably worsen. He limps the six miles around the 7,400-yard course, finishing with a third-round 79, the highest score he’s ever recorded in a PGA Championship.

Tiger withdraws from the tournament before the final round. “As much as he’s working and trying,” Tiger’s caddie, Joe LaCava, tells Golfweek, “the body just won’t cooperate.”

The situation is more severe than what’s reported to the media. A screw in Tiger’s surgically repaired leg came loose and pierced his skin. Further medical treatment is required.

Tiger won’t be playing in the RBC Canadian Open, the third-oldest event on the PGA Tour after the British Open and the U.S. Open. Interest is heightened around this second weekend in June because LIV has chosen the same dates for its inaugural event, in England. To Rory McIlroy, who’s recently become one of five player-directors on the PGA policy board and who wins the 2022 Canadian Open, LIV’s move to attract tour players eager to make a quick buck is not a good look. “The professional game is the window shop into golf,” he says of the visibility and influence of elite play.

On June 9, at the Centurion Club, outside London, seventeen PGA players—including major winners Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, and Sergio Garcia—begin first-round play at the first LIV Golf event. They’re immediately suspended by the PGA, losing eligibility for tour events and the Presidents Cup. Ten resign their memberships.

According to Greg Norman, CEO of LIV, Tiger was also offered a “mind-blowingly enormous” deal to join the upstart tour. “We’re talking about high nine digits.” But Tiger’s unmoved by the money. On June 10, Forbes reports in a headline, TIGER WOODS OFFICIALLY A BILLIONAIRE, NO THANKS TO THE SAUDIS. He’s joined a rarefied group—the only other two athletes with a net worth of $1 billion are Michael Jordan and LeBron James. Even in the past year, during which Tiger’s largely been recovering from injuries sustained in his 2021 car crash, he earned $68 million from endorsements and other ventures, including golf course design as well as his restaurant and resort business.

His finances are sound, but his body continues to falter. On July 5, Tiger explains why he withdrew from the U.S. Open, citing “some issues with my leg” and saying, “If you asked me last year whether I would play golf again, all of my surgeons would have said no. But here I am playing two major championships this year. I will always be able to play golf, whether it’s this leg or someone else’s leg or false leg or different body pieces that have been placed or fused. I’ll always be able to play. Now if you say play at a championship level, well, that window is definitely not as long as I would like it to be.”

The three-time British Open champion (2000, 2005, 2006) won his first two on the Old Course. Returning to St Andrews, Scotland, for the 150th British Open, Tiger leaves nothing to chance. He arrives early, allowing five days of practice.

On July 11, Tiger poses with fellow three-time Open champion Jack Nicklaus—who won the Claret Jug in 1966, 1970, and 1978—on the seven-hundred-year-old stone Swilcan Bridge over the stream between the 1st and 18th fairways. The photo—posted to @TheOpen and captioned simply “Tiger. Jack. St Andrews.”—goes viral.

But the fabled history of the place and his past achievements here fail to carry him through the week. Tiger misses the level-par cut by nine strokes.

In respect for the defeated champion, the spectators in the grandstands rise to their feet. Over on the 1st, Rory McIlroy tips his cap.

Tiger returns the gesture, making it his own. Where Arnold Palmer (1995) and Jack Nicklaus (2005) stopped midway over the Swilcan Bridge to tip their caps to the crowd one last time, Tiger crosses over without stopping, his TW cap raised high overhead in greeting.

Some believe that crossing the bridge is an act that connects the past, present, and future of golf. Although he thinks the British Open is unlikely to return to St Andrews before 2030, Tiger hopes he’ll be there when it does.

“It was a struggle playing the three events I played this year,” he says. “That in itself is something I’m very proud of.”

In September of 2022, thirteen-year-old junior golfer Charlie Woods is trying to qualify for the NB3, the Notah Begay III Junior Golf National Championship.

Tiger’s good friend Begay—the first Native American to play on the PGA Tour—has made it his mission to bring golf to future generations. He founded the tournament in 2020 in partnership with the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, which operates Koasati Pines, at the Coushatta Casino Resort.

The thirty-six-hole qualifier, Last Chance Florida Regional, is held at the Mission Resort + Club, in Howey-in-the-Hills, Florida. On Saturday, September 24, while Tiger was advising the Presidents Cup captain, Davis Love III, by phone, Charlie shot an 80. Today, with Tiger on the bag, he shoots a personal-best 68 that ties him for fourth place.

“Dad told me to stay patient and just play steady golf,” Charlie says. “I couldn’t have done it without him. Some shots, I would’ve been so off. He steered me on the right course.”

A few weeks later, on November 7, Tiger and Charlie are in the wetlands of southwestern Louisiana among the live oaks and tall pines at Koasati Pines. Fans feel like they’ve hit the jackpot when they spot Tiger on the bag for his son, wearing a caddie bib that reads WOODS.

Max Homa, six-time winner on the PGA Tour, suspects that Tiger’s presence might have the opposite effect on Charlie’s competitors. “When I was in Jr high,” Homa posts, “I played a tourney with this kid who told me he got his putter from a guy who was on the PGA Tour and I remember being really intimidated for some reason. Not sure I would have handled Tiger caddying in my group too well.”

Ten kids in the twelve-and-thirteen division withstand the pressure. Charlie finishes in eleventh place, at 1 under.

The week before Christmas, Charlie and Tiger team up for their third consecutive year at the PNC Championships. During an impressive opening-round 59, Charlie birdies the fourth and delights the crowd by raising his putter with his father’s trademark flair.

Tiger, reports golf writer Jason Sobel, made a special request. Could NBC’s Peacock streaming service have a camera at the first tee? After he and Charlie hit their tee shots, they looked into the camera and congratulated Elin, Tiger’s ex-wife and Charlie’s mom. She gave birth to a baby this past Thursday, Sobel tweets.

It’s Elin’s second baby with her boyfriend, Jordan Cameron, a former NFL tight end with the Cleveland Browns and Miami Dolphins. Sam and Charlie also have another half brother, Arthur, born in October of 2019.

Days ahead of Tiger’s own upcoming birthday—his forty-seventh—he again takes advantage of the permission to ride a golf cart on the course. As it was during the nine competitive rounds in this year’s Masters, PGA Championship, and British Open, his play is marred by leg and back pain. Team Tiger finishes eighth.

To Tiger, the year-end tournament is a lens through which he charts his physical progress. “The first year, I had back surgery and last year I played with a broken leg,” he says. “So this year, nothing was broken, but it was good that all the pieces are there again all lined up.”