Tiger Woods Still Believes He Can Win—But What Happens When He No Longer Holds That Belief?

FREDERIC J. BROWN. Getty Images.

PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. — The gravitas of a Tiger Woods press conference begins well before he says a word. This one began with a point. One of the dozen-plus photographers cramped into the back of Riviera's media center caught wind that Tiger would be coming from that way, so she pointed. Everyone looked. It's perhaps the most Tiger-thing I'll remember in 50 years—the way everything happening in a room stops the moment he walks in. 

He walked up to the podium and his gait, in all fairness, has improved. Woods walked a bit pigeon-toed last year, the result of a surgically rebuilt right leg that doesn't quite replicate the original. There's been some significant trial-and-error in the time since St. Andrews. Team Woods has tried new methods of taping, new exercises, new patterns and new routines, and it's getting better. It's not all the way there—it never will be—but it's certainly improved. 

"It's gotten so much better the last couple months," he said. "I'm excited to go out there and compete and play with these guys. And I would not have put myself out here if I didn't think I could beat these guys and win the event. That's my mentality. If I wasn't ready to win at this level, I am very rusty, but I've come off a rusty situation before and I've done well and I've had to utilize a lot of those tactics in practice in buildup. Plus, also I know this golf course."

There is, of course, very little evidence (outside his name) to suggest he's ready to win this golf tournament. Woods has not played a competitive round since last July, when he badly missed the cut at his favorite golf course in the world. He has not won a tournament in nearly four years. This week, he's playing against the strongest non-major field you'll see all year, and he'll do so on a golf course that's vexed him like none other—he's played Riviera 14 times without a win, most of any venue. He hasn't walked 72 holes over four consecutive days in 2023. And yet, he believes he can do it. Still, at age 47, he believes he can do it. 

Why? He still has plenty of speed. That hasn't been an issue since he returned from the car accident. And there have absolutely been signs that he can hang with the world's best, at least for a little. He made the cut in the first two majors of last year. He's shot multiple rounds in the mid 60's at his home course in South Florida. His sharpness at the PNC Championship in December caught Jim "Bones" Mackay off-guard. 

"Nothing impressed me more than how well [Tiger] played," Bones said that week. "I was out there thinking, oh my gosh, it's a Ryder Cup year."

The raw tools are there—he can still hit all the shots necessary to win a PGA Tour event. That won't be the case for very much longer. Which means we're headed, eventually, for a fascinating decision. Let's cue up one of Tiger's first big interviews, the one where Curtis Strange assures him he has much to learn.

That condescending laugh and those two words are the enduring memory from that interview, but it's what Woods says afterwards that's relevant here. 

"I've always figured that, why go to a tournament if you're not doing it to try and win?" he says, not intimidated by Strange in the slightest. "There's really no point. That's the attitude I've had my entire life, and that's the attitude I will always have."

Woods' career surely has surpassed even his own expectations of himself. A 21-year-old kid with the world at his fingertips isn't thinking about being 47 with a bad back. He's thinking even less about being 65 years old and shooting 80-79 at the Masters. A ceremonial golfer, as Woods has said with more than a hint of disdain. He doesn't ever want to be a ceremonial golfer. 

That's the thing about golf, though—basically every Hall of Famer has served time as a ceremonial golfer. This isn't football, where a geriatric suiting up would constitute a serious health hazard. Old-timers can play in the same tournament as the 25-year-old swinging it 125 mph. It's a rite of passage among the all-time greats. Jack Nicklaus played in the Masters well past the time he had a realistic shot of winning it. Gary Player played in 52 of them. Arnold Palmer got to 50. They hang around the game because they love it, and the know what their presence does for an event. 

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No one's ever done more for events than Tiger Woods. The guy won the Player Impact Program each of the past two years playing a combined total of three events. Having him on the tee sheet injects an event with adrenaline. It's why the PGA Tour, its players, the majors and everyone else in the golf ecosystem want him around as much as possible no matter how he plays. 

But will he want to be there when he no longer believes his best is good enough? Kevin Van Valkenburg of No Laying Up asked him a version of that question, and Woods took a second to collect his thoughts before offering a stream-of-consciousness response.  

"I don't -- I have not come around to the idea of being -- if I'm playing, I play to win," Woods said Tuesday. "I know that players have played and they are ambassadors of the game and try to grow the game. I can't have my mind, I can't wrap my mind around that as a competitor. If I'm playing in the event I'm going to try and beat you. I'm there to get a W, OK? So I don't understand that making the cut's a great thing. If I entered the event, it's always to get a W. There will come a point in time when my body will not allow me to do that anymore, and it's probably sooner rather than later, but wrapping my ahead around that transition and being the ambassador role and just trying to be out here with the guys, no, that's not in my DNA."

He hates the thought of it. Absolutely hates it. Dr. Michael Lardon, a sports psychiatrist who has worked with multiple major champions including Phil Mickelson, calls this type of thought "egodystonic." In other words, it goes against the very fiber of his being. 

"So much of what made Tiger great is his tenacity," Dr. Lardon told me. "We see this all the time with athletes—they go from being a warrior their whole life, and then they have to transition. It's not easy. It's not easy at all. But you can't be great forever. We do, at some point, move on into another stage. It's a phenomenon we see with many athletes, and with him it's amplified many times over." 

Whether Woods' stance softens remains to be seen. People change. Hell, Tiger's changed. He's much more open and vulnerable these days. He's a mentor of sorts to the Justin Thomases and Rory McIlroys of the world. He's taken an active role in helping to reshape the PGA Tour because he cares deeply about the game and his legacy. Woods used to show up to tournaments like they were business trips. That stopped with his back surgeries.

"I could power through my knee and the meniscus and no ACL, I could power through that, but I could never power through my back.," Woods said. "That's when I started realizing the mortality of this game and just sports in general."

Woods knows there will be a day in the not-so-distant future when he'll be forced to confront his own golfing mortality. A skeptic would argue that day should've already arrived, and that Woods' belief in his ability is an irrational one. Either way, he'll get there on his own time. And when he does, according to 21-year-old Tiger, that would mark the end of his playing days. 

But a few things he said Tuesday suggest an evolving view of his own role in the game. He said he's grateful simply to be here on the grounds this week. And, with regards to being a ceremonial golfer: "I have not come around to the idea." Not I can't come around, or I'll never come around. He just hasn't gotten there. Yet.