Even in Bible-belt America, nobody believes in a Tiger miracle this time, writes RIATH AL-SAMARRAI

Tiger Woods answered 28 questions amid the mahogany and leather of an Augusta conference room yesterday. It was the one he wasn’t asked that spoke loudest about changing times and aching limbs.

For all the traditions of this grand old place, one that has established itself in recent years has been the invitation for an ageing, broken giant to state if he still has it. If he can still get it done in spite of himself.

Not now. It would seem that even within this Bible-belt state some miracles feel just too improbable, and so the standard enquiry — can you win? — was not fed to a cat with thinning fur and fusions of spine and ankle joints.

But he believes, because if the last thing a heavyweight boxer loses is his power, the last trait to abandon this particular golfer will be his sense that all outcomes are possible so long as he can grip a club in competition.

‘If everything comes together, I think I can get one more,’ he said, having been asked of his capabilities at the age of 48 and five years removed from his fifth and most remarkable major victory here.

‘I don’t know when that day is (that he cannot compete to win), or when that day comes, but I still think I can. I haven’t got to that point where I don’t think I can.’

It will likely mean little or nothing to Woods that so few others share his faith. That some might wonder where romance ends and delusion begins, especially when so much of the same discussion centred on Woods’s many ailments and why this course, of all courses, is murder for those who struggle with a hilly walk.

‘I hurt every day,’ was one admission, and there’s a sadness in those words. It’s the tale of a right leg almost amputated following his car crash of 2021, and an ankle on the same limb that in the past year has been fused into one solid, unmovable joint.

To see him shuffle around a course, or towards his seat in a press conference theatre, is to remember this was one of the greatest athletes of any denomination or generation.

We can admire his willingness to struggle, and we certainly did here last year when he wrestled all of that to make the cut. But we also saw him limp out after seven holes of the third round, a man on the back end of a hiding in his fight against age and circumstance. A man who spoke about playing once a month this year and had abandoned the plan by February because of plantar fasciitis.

‘The ankle doesn’t hurt any more because it’s fused,’ Woods said yesterday, which counts for something. ‘It’s other parts of my body that now have to take the brunt of it. The back, the knee, other parts have to take the load of it.’

He would add: ‘I ache.’

He does. Just as he aches to do what he once did and golf aches to ensure the music never stops.

For as long as it runs, Woods will always be box office on these desperately rare occasions when he makes the start line. He will always be the show. He will always draw the biggest galleries and the loudest roars and attract the most commentary.

His press conferences, like his driving-range sessions and practice rounds, are the busiest on these grounds by far, even if a successful tournament for him, objectively, would be survival to the weekend.

That he sets off tomorrow having never missed the cut in 23 visits as a professional is almost as astonishing as many of his 15 major wins, owing to what he has withstood since 2008, when his body first began to fail him. 

To do so again would be what triumph looks like for Woods in 2024. If he says he can win, if he truly believes it, then good luck to him. But going back to the absence of that annual question, one asked in its place queried if a thought had entered his mind about one day becoming a ceremonial starter here. 

That being the role currently filled by Jack Nicklaus, 84, Gary Player, 88, and Tom Watson, 74. Woods smiled at that one. 

‘No, I have not thought about being a starter here,’ he said, and yet the truth, even within this property of artificial realities, is that ceremonial duties are closer to his existing status as the world No 959 than a place in the Butler Cabin come Sunday.

Being a smart guy, Woods knows that. He might wish to trick his own mind, he might even need to, but he also knows his next chapters are already here and will most likely involve the captaincy of the US Ryder Cup team in 2025.

He disclosed he will have talks about that position imminently, saying: ‘Let me focus on getting through this week and hopefully getting another jacket, and then we are going to talk about it next week.’ There is a lot to be excited about in that comment but only half of it was rooted in realistic possibilities.

Does that matter? Perhaps not, but it was inevitable he was eventually going to encounter an opponent as stubborn as he is: time. Only Woods would fancy his chances in that one.