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Tiger Woods hopes to walk the walk at Masters

AUGUSTA, Ga. – I feel like I am going to play. With those words, Tiger Woods signaled his intent to tee it up at the Masters Tournament, his first official PGA TOUR start in roughly a year and a half. Should he do so, Thursday would be his first official competition in 508 days, going all the way back to the final round of the (November) 2020 Masters. It is the second-longest hiatus of his career. No one who has watched him this week doubts he can hit the ball well enough. “Flushing it,” Fred Couples said after playing with Woods and Justin Thomas on Monday. Added Rory McIlroy, who is making his 14th Masters start: “I’ve spent a little bit of time with him at home, and the golf is there. He’s hitting it well. He’s chipping well. He’s sharp.” No, the question this week is whether Woods can walk. The five-time Masters champion said doctors considered amputating his right leg after a single-car accident in Los Angeles early in 2021. Now, 14 months later, he hopes to put one foot in front of the other for 72 holes. It’s harder than it sounds. Other than the Plantation Course at Kapalua, site of the Sentry Tournament of Champions, Augusta National presents some of the hilliest terrain in golf. As they might say at nearby Fort Gordon, it will be all about left, right, left as Woods walks through hill and dale, navigating slippery sidehill lies, loose pine straw, and pitched bunkers. Cameron Davis, who joined Woods during his Sunday practice round, said he was “a little slow” going up the steep slopes on 17 and 18. Davis, the Rocket Mortgage Classic winner, prefaced it with the observation that Woods is – all together now – hitting it great. Before the accident, the best way to read late-career Tiger Woods was to watch his speed. These days everyone is watching his gait. “It’s just the physical demand of getting around 72 holes here this week,” McIlroy said. Not that he would be surprised if Woods can meet that demand. Max Homa said essentially the same thing, that he was less surprised than amazed that Woods is back, adding that the arduous physical therapy he’s had to undergo just to be here brought to mind the 2015 Showtime documentary “Kobe Bryant’s Muse.” Specifically, the part after Bryant injures his Achilles. “It’s just him picking up marbles with his toes,” Homa said. Again and again. To repeat such a monotonous task takes incredible discipline. What can we expect from Woods this week? Excellence? Mediocrity? A bit of both? “I do,” Woods replied when asked if he thinks he can win. You want to doubt him? In December of 2019, Woods went 3-0-0 as playing captain of the winning U.S. Presidents Cup Team, becoming the first in the history of that event with 27 victories. He was coming off his 82nd win at the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP in Japan in the fall, his Masters victory the previous April, and an electric TOUR Championship win before that. Alas, that flurry of excellence took a toll, and Woods soon reverted to the player whose 1,322 rounds on TOUR had come with four back surgeries – spinal fusion in 2017 – and four knee surgeries. He had one top-10 finish in the 2020 calendar year, and skipped a handful of his favorites, including the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, The Honda Classic, and THE PLAYERS Championship. Then came the pandemic. Returning at the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide (T40), Woods was a non-factor, and his T72 at the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP @ SHERWOOD, a course where he’d won the Hero World Challenge five times, said it all. At the November Masters he was tied for 10th after an opening-round 68, but on Sunday made a 10 at the 12th hole, hitting three balls in the water. It the highest score of his career. He bounced back with birdies on five of the last six. On the plus side, Woods’ ability to summon that much game over the closing holes on the back nine showed it’s still in there. On the minus side, he shot 76 and finished T38. “I haven’t put all the pieces together at the same time,” Woods said. He also wasn’t 100%. Two days before Christmas in 2020 he had a fifth back surgery, another microdiscectomy. And less than two months later he would nearly lose his leg in the terrifying accident that left him bedridden for months. He measured progress in tiny increments, starting with being able to sit in the backyard and listen to the birds. He went from chipping and putting to hitting full shots. He posted a swing video that set the internet on fire. He hit balls in public as he hosted but did not play in the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas in December. Taking a cart, he played in the father-son PNC Championship with son Charlie later that month, finishing second to John Daly and John Daly, Jr. “I can play hit-and-giggle golf,” he said. As for competing against the likes of McIlroy and Justin Thomas, his neighbors in Jupiter, well, progress was slow. At The Genesis Invitational, another tournament Woods hosts, in February, he could offer no timeline. He said he wasn’t sure when he might be able to walk 72 holes again. Will this be the week? And what else might he be capable of doing? He’ll tee it up with Joaquin Niemann and Louis Oosthuizen for the first two rounds, and then, assuming he’s still able, he’ll play into the weekend. Hanging in the balance are potential alterations to his career totals, the 82 victories – tied with Sam Snead for most ever – 31 seconds, 19 thirds, 199 top-10 finishes in 368 starts, 11-1 playoff record, and earnings of nearly $121 million. Oh, and the 15 major championship titles. Left, right, left, one foot in front of the other, Woods is playing again. He thinks he can win.

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Horschel donates half his earnings from THE PLAYERS to Feeding Northeast FloridaHorschel donates half his earnings from THE PLAYERS to Feeding Northeast Florida

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Billy Horschel called it a sad day in the world of sports. He understood why THE PLAYERS Championship had to be cancelled. He knew the PGA TOUR had to take action in light of increasing panic amid the global pandemic caused by the coronavirus. Still, he couldn’t help but be disappointed, as so many people were, that the final three rounds of the TOUR’s showcase event wouldn’t be played at TPC Sawgrass this weekend. March Madness, the NBA, Major League Baseball and the NHL, among other organizations, have made similar decisions. “When we have situations like this, everyone can rely on sports to sort of take their mind off the tragedy at hand or the situation at hand in the world, and right now we don’t have that,â€� Horschel said. “It’s just very sad.â€� But the Florida grad is a man who looks to the positives in life. And an organization close to Horschel’s heart, Feeding Northeast Florida, is going to benefit from the cancellation – inheriting much of the food that was bought to feed the more then 200,000 people expected to attend the event. PGA TOUR Commissioner Jay Monahan announced the donation at an 8 a.m. press conference on Friday morning. Horschel was in attendance at the standing-room only event. “Billy is ambassador for Feeding Northeast Florida, and obviously we’ve prepared to have over 200,000 people here on property and won’t,â€� Monahan said. “So, one of the things that we’re quickly going to get to work on is how do you take all the food supplies that we have here and put them to good use for our community. “That’s something that we’re going to do immediately.â€� Horschel didn’t know Monahan was going to single him out. But he was excited when he heard that that the organization would benefit from what was such a difficult decision and situation. “I’m not entirely aware of everything, but I do know that the food that is going to be here, we’re going to be loading up on Feeding Northeast Florida food trucks,â€� Horschel said later. “It’s really great that the TOUR and the staff of THE PLAYERS Championship is doing this. “It’s our local food bank. We feed a lot of people in the northeast Florida community.â€� Horschel, who won the 2014 FedExCup, and his wife Brittany have been involved with Feeding Northeast Florida for more than six years. Since 2015, he has donated more than $115,000 to the organization through his #DriveOutHunger campaign at THE PLAYERS. The Billy Horschel Junior Invitational, which won the AJGA charitable giving award last year, has also generated more than $135,244 for FNEFL. He bought pallets of AquaHydrate water to give to the food bank after Hurricane Irma. He and his wife have added their sweat equity, stuffing boxes of food to be distributed, as well. The satisfaction he gets is palpable when Horschel talks about the mission of the organization. “To see how many individuals in our community are food-insecure, and when people hear that, they think just homeless and local food bank,â€� Horschel said. “It’s really not. There’s a lot of people that are working two, three jobs and can’t make ends meet, and at the end of the day when that happens, food is the last thing on the burner to be dealt with. “They’re helping thousands of individuals in our community, and we’ve been very fortunate enough to be involved with that. I’ve been very fortunate enough to help raise money. I’ve donated a lot of my own money to help them meet their goal of making our food — making our community food-secure, and we’re getting closer. We are.â€� A year ago, THE PLAYERS Championship generated a record $9.25 million for local charities, bringing the total raised since 1974 to more than $100 million. A similar story can be told in every city that hosts a PGA TOUR event. But the cancellation of THE PLAYERS, the Valspar Championship, the World Golf Championships-Dell Match Play, the Corales Punta Cana Resort and Club Championship and the Valero Open over the next month affects the charitable bottom line in those cities. That’s why Horschel decided to donate $20,000 of the $52,000 he received when THE PLAYERS was cancelled to the FNEFL. (Half of THE PLAYERS $15 million purse was equally distributed among the pros who competed.) He plans to give the rest to other charitable endeavors and Horschel would like to see his fellow pros follow suit. He knows that there are many charities supported by the tournaments that have been cancelled over the next month that will sorely miss the donations. He’d like to see other TOUR pros use their shares of THE PLAYERS purse to give back, as well. “I understand everyone is different in this situation, but that the money that they got paid this week, that they donate some way, whether it’s to the next week’s, next few weeks’ charities and organizations or to the charities around where they live, because they’re going to need it, as well,â€� Horschel said. “That’s what I’m going to do. Hopefully my fellow TOUR players understand the situation and do something, as well, but I’m not going to — I’m not forcing them to do anything. Hopefully they do what they feel like is right.â€� Monahan clearly expects to see other TOUR pros follow Horschel’s lead. “Our focus is going to be with our players on how we use this moment in time to inspire the communities where we won’t be playing, inspire when we get back in when we’re playing, and make sure we use the strength of this organization to do good here and ultimately get back to this unbelievable platform that we have that’s going to get stronger as we go through this challenge,â€� he said.

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