by 
Tiger Woods announced Friday that he has undergone back surgery to relieve muscle spasms that have hampered him in 2024, with the 15-time major champion saying he hopes to return to “normal life activities, including golf.”
Woods, who turns 49 in December, has not played since missing the cut at the Open Championship in July.
Playing a limited schedule in 2024 as he continued to deal with injuries sustained in a car accident in 2021, Woods withdrew from the Genesis Invitational due to illness and then finished last among those making the cut at the Masters.
He missed the cut at the PGA Championship and the US Open before missing the cut at Royal Troon.
“The surgery went well and I hope it helps relieve the back spasms and pain I have been experiencing for most of the 2024 season,” Woods said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
“I look forward to getting started on this rehabilitation and getting ready to return to normal activities of life, including golf.”
Woods, who won the last of his 15 majors at the 2019 Masters, said he underwent “microdecompression surgery of the lumbar spine for nerve compression in his lower back.”
It is the latest in a series of back operations for the American superstar, who underwent spinal fusion surgery in 2017 and managed to come back to win the Masters two years later – his first major title since lifting the US Open trophy in 2008.
In October 2019, Woods won the inaugural Zozo Championship in Japan, equalling Sam Snead’s record of 82 U.S. PGA Tour victories, and in December of that year he captained and played on the U.S. team that defeated the International in the Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne.
But since his February 2021 car accident near Los Angeles that left him with serious lower leg injuries, Woods has acknowledged he can only play a limited schedule of one tournament per month at most.
Woods told Riviera last February that he felt it physically “every day,” but added: “I still love competing. I love playing, I love being a part of golf.”
After missing the cut at Troon in July, Woods insisted he had “improved” physically.
“I just need to keep progressing like that and then eventually start playing more competitively and get back into the rhythm of competition,” he said in Scotland.
In addition to working on his return to form, Woods is among the negotiators trying to hammer out a final merger deal between the U.S. PGA Tour and the LIV Golf League’s backers, the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia.
bb/grave
