Tiger Woods plays down prospect of PGA Tour return

Tiger Woods has played down suggestions that he is ready to make his return to top-level PGA Tour events after he and son Charlie finished second in the PNC Championship.

Team Woods had 14 birdies – including a remarkable 11 in a row from the seventh – in a second round 57 to catapult themselves into title contention at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club in Orlando.

In the end, they missed out by a shot as two-time major champion John Daly and his son, John Jnr, came through to win.

It was, however, a hugely impressive performance from Woods in what was his first competitive appearance since his near-fatal car accident in February.

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The 15-time major champion spent three months in hospital following the early-morning crash on the outskirts of Los Angeles just over nine months ago. Making his first public appearance since then at the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas earlier this month, Woods revealed that medics considered amputating his right leg, such were the severity of the injuries he sustained.

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In the same press conference, he added that he has no timetable for a return to the tour, insisting that he would need to be cautious and limit his starts.

Despite a good couple of days’ work in the company of his son, he insists that position hasn’t changed.

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“I’m not at that level,” said the former world No.1 who turns 46 next week. “I can’t compete against these guys right now. It’s going to take a lot of work to get to where I feel like I can compete and be at a high level.”

Nonetheless, he’s happy to be back doing what he does best.

“The competitive juices, they are never going to go away. This is my environment. This is what I’ve done my entire life. I’m just so thankful to be able to have this opportunity to do it again. Earlier this year was not a very good start to the year and it didn’t look very good.

“But the last few weeks, to push as hard as we have the last seven months with taking no days off and just working our butts off each and every day, and to have this opportunity to be able to play with my son and to have these memories, for us, for both of us, our lifetime, it’s worth all the pain.”

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He added: “I like competing. As I told you guys in the Bahamas, I’m not going to play a full schedule ever again. I’m going to have to pick-and-choose what events, and even then, my body might not cooperate with that.

“So I don’t know how many events I’m going to be playing in and it’s going to be up to training sessions, practice sessions, recovery tactics, all those different things to be able to do it. I’m just so thankful to be able to do this again because it didn’t look good there for a little about it.”