Tiger Woods hopes to play 2016-17 season opener

Sep 7, 2016: For months people have wondered when Tiger Woods would be healthy enough to return to the PGA TOUR. Some have even suggested his body could be so broken he might not ever tee it up again.

Woods appeared to have put an end to all that speculation on Wednesday when he announced that he hopes to play in the Safeway Open, Oct. 13-16 in Napa, California. The tournament, the 2016-17 PGA TOUR Season-opener, would mark Woods’ first competitive rounds since the Wyndham Championship last August.

“My rehabilitation is to the point where I’m comfortable making plans, but I still have work to do,” Tiger said on his website. “Whether I can play depends on my continued progress and recovery. My hope is to have my game ready to go.”

Woods posted his only top-10 of the 2014-15 season in Greensboro that week, holding a share of the 36-hole lead and ending up tied for 10th. There were times, though, when he did appear to limp slightly, and three weeks later, Woods revealed he’d had to have a second microdiscectomy surgery.

The first time Woods had the procedure, which was to alleviate a pinched nerve in his neck, was in April 2014. He was sidelined until July, missing the season’s first two majors, before returning to play in the Quicken Loans National he hosts.

Woods had hoped for a similarly quick recovery and rehabilitation, announcing that he expected to return to the TOUR early this year. But that timetable went out the window when he had to have a follow-up procedure in late October, his third on his back in 20 months.

In early December, about three weeks prior to his 40th birthday, Woods met with the media at the Hero World Challenge, which benefits his charitable foundation. At that point, he had not started rehab and was taking things day-by-day.

“Where is the light at the end of the tunnel,” he wondered aloud. “I don’t know.”

In March, Woods wrote on his website that he had begun chipping and putting, as well as hitting 9-irons. He said he needed to get stronger and more flexible.

“While there is no timetable on my return to competitive golf, I want to play this game at the highest level again. In order to do that, I have to get healthy,” he wrote.

In recent months, there were glimpses of Woods at corporate outings and at Bluejack National, the course he is designing outside Houston. A popular video on social media showed Woods bear-hugging an 11-year-old who aced the first hole at the opening of the 10-hole short course there.

Still, Woods announced on April 1 that he would not be playing in the Masters, marking the second time in the last three years that he didn’t play at Augusta National. He did, however, attend the Champions Dinner on Wednesday night.

“I’m absolutely making progress, and I’m really happy with how far I’ve come, but I still have no timetable to return to competitive golf,” Woods then said on his website.

Woods, who is four shy of equaling Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 professional major victories, has not won one of golf’s crown jewels since the 2008, when he captured the U.S. Open, which he played basically on one leg, in an 18-hole playoff. Eight days later doctors used a tendon from his right thigh to repair the torn ACL in his left knee.

Woods, who only made eight starts in 2014 and 11 in 2015, was sidelined by the knee surgery for eight months. The comparisons to his current situation stopped there.

“My knee, that was easy compared to a nerve,” Woods said in December. “It’s a thousand times easier.”

By mid-April, reports surfaced that Woods was spending four and five hours on the practice range at The Medalist in Jupiter, Florida, where he now lives. He also was seen hitting full shots during a clinic at the Junior Invitational, which is sponsored by Nike, in Graniteville, South Carolina, and the video made the rounds on social media, as well.