Can Tiger Woods still compete? His ex-coach doubts it…

Tiger Woods is gearing up to make his fourth start of 2024 at this week’s US Open.

The 15-time major champion withdrew from the first of those, the Genesis Invitational, before finishing 60th at The Masters and missing the cut at the PGA Championship.

Woods hasn’t registered a single top-20 in the majors since his Masters win in 2019 – the longest streak of his career.

In that time, he has missed as many cuts – five – as he has made.

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So, can he realistically hope to be competitive at Pinehurst this week? Not according to his former coach Hank Haney.

Responding to a slo-mo clip of Woods’ filmed during a practice round today, Haney offered a brutally honest take on the state of his former pupil.

“Tiger’s swing looks really good,” wrote Haney, “but golf might be too hard a game to play once in a while at a high level.”

That observation appears to be endorsed by the bookmakers. Woods is currently priced as long as 250/1 with some British betting firms.

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For context, Tiger was priced at 80/1 to win the Grand Slam back in 2000. In the same year, you could get him at 5/4 to win the Buick Open – the shortest odds given for a golfer to win a PGA Tour full field event in living memory.

Woods will be making his first US Open appearance this week since the COVID-delayed championship of 2020 at Winged Foot.

This will be 23rd career start in an event he has won three times, most recently in 2008 at Torrey Pines.

However, he has pegged it up in only four of the last ten US Opens due to a litany of injuries.

Michael McEwan is the Deputy Editor of bunkered and has been part of the team since 2004. In that time, he has interviewed almost every major figure within the sport, from Jack Nicklaus, to Rory McIlroy, to Donald Trump. The host of the multi award-winning bunkered Podcast and a member of Balfron Golfing Society, Michael is the author of three books and is the 2023 PPA Scotland 'Writer of the Year' and 'Columnist of the Year'. Dislikes white belts, yellow balls and iron headcovers. Likes being drawn out of the media ballot to play Augusta National.

Deputy Editor