NASSAU, Bahamas — Tiger Woods joked that he planned to play 25 tournaments on both the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions next year. He smiled and laughter ensued. The reality is he said he couldn’t put a timeline on his return as he mounts his latest comeback from back surgery six weeks ago.
“Not as fast as I’d like it to be,” he said on Tuesday ahead of the PGA Tour’s Hero World Challenge at Albany Club, where he serves as tournament host, when asked about the progress he is making.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementWoods said he was cleared by his doctor to begin chipping and putting last week and he is beginning to ramp up work in the gym, but it would be premature for the 82-time Tour winner to target a return.
Woods hasn’t played in the Hero World Challenge since 2023, and hasn’t competed on the Tour at all since the 2024 British Open, where he missed the cut, other than in TGL, the screen-golf start-up league he's an investor in. He was planning to play in the Genesis Championship, the other Tour event that he serves as host, in February, but his mother, Kultida, died, shortly before it and he announced he wasn’t ready to compete. Then in March, he ruptured his left Achilles tendon while ramping up training and practice at home.
Tiger Woods of the United States speaks to the media during his media conference prior to the Hero World Challenge 2025 at Albany Golf Course on December 02, 2025 in Nassau, Bahamas.“It’s been a tough year,” he said.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementHe noted he wouldn’t be able to compete with son Charlie in the PNC Championship later this month, a two-person team event that has become a personal favorite for him and in which Team Woods lost in a playoff last year.
Woods called the surgery, “a good thing to do, something that needed to happen.”
He said he wouldn’t be able to play in the initial TGL matches for his team, Jupiter Links, but would attend all the matches and hoped to be able to play later in the season in the screen-golf league, which begins in late December and runs through March.
Woods celebrates his 50th birthday on Dec. 30, and will become eligible for PGA Tour Champions. He declined to commit to how much he would play on the senior circuit, where the use of a cart and only 54 holes at most events have been cited as reasons he might play more there than on the PGA Tour.
“I’d like to come back to just playing golf again," he said.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Tiger Woods gives update on injuries, future plans to play
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