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The 123rd US Open begins this week with a stacked field set to take part. The US Open is regarded as the hardest of the four major championships in terms of pin placements and course selections and this year the elite of the game will test their skills on the North Course of Los Angeles Country Club.
It is the first time that the Country Club has hosted a major tournament and it is the first time in nearly 30 years that a major has been played in Los Angeles. The course has hosted the Los Angeles Open on four occasions, however, none of the current field will have played a competitive round of golf there before with the last PGA Tour event at the club taking place back in 1940.
Despite the fact that there are 156 players taking part this week, one noticeable absentee is Tiger Woods. The 15-time major champion is still recovering from surgery after he was forced to withdraw from the Masters earlier in the year. In the wet and blustery conditions at Augusta National, Woods was pictured struggling to even walk at times and withdrew after round three.
When will Tiger Woods return to golf?
After withdrawing from the Masters, Woods posted an update on social media to let fans know that he had undergone surgery once again. The 47-year-old said that he had aggravated his plantar fasciitis at the Masters and that the surgery was a “subtalar fusion procedure”. The operation was to treat post-traumatic arthritis in his ankle which was severely injured during a car accident in 2021 and it forced him out of the PGA Championship last month.
I am disappointed to have to WD this morning due to reaggravating my plantar fasciitis. Thank you to the fans and to @TheMasters who have shown me so much love and support. Good luck to the players today!
— Tiger Woods (@TigerWoods) April 9, 2023
In his statement at the time, Woods didn’t set a comeback date or even confirm that there would be a comeback. After a decade of crippling injuries, his fitness levels and golf swing simply aren’t anywhere near the level they were when he dominated the sport in the 2000s and many pundits have speculated that he might decide to retire instead of making yet another return.
However, there are also others in the game who believe that Woods may still have his eye on competing in the fourth and final major of the year at the Open Championship next month. Woods said at the start of this season that he would only look to play in the four majors each year going forward so if we don’t see him next month then it won’t be until next year that we see him again on a golf course.
Tiger Woods’ record at the US Open
Out of his 15 major championship victories, three of them have come in the US Open. Although for mere mortals, three victories at a major championship would be considered an incredible achievement, for Woods, there will be a sense of disappointment. He will feel like he should have won more US Open titles over the years but then on the flip side, his victory in 2008 came from the jaws of defeat.
Due to injury problems, Woods last played at the US Open way back in 2019 and it isn’t out of the question that he won’t ever play in the event again.
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