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Tiger Woods wants to win his sixth Masters. Rory McIlroy wants to win his first. All eyes will be on them both.
Gideon Canice
Tiger Woods wants to win his sixth Masters. Rory McIlroy wants to win his first. All eyes will be on them both.
Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods during their Tuesday pre-tournament interviews at the Masters.

Woods has nothing left to prove. The winner of 15 major championships and five Masters is 48 and dealing with the same sort of aches and pains experienced by a retired NFL lineman. His ankle is fused. His knee is balky. His back is iffy.

He withdrew from the 2023 Masters after the second round because of plantar fasciitis and since has played exactly one round on the PGA Tour, withdrawing from the Genesis Open in February because of illness after opening with a 1-over 72. That is not exactly the blueprint for success going into a major championship, or any tournament for that matter.

What would constitute a good week for him at Augusta National? Probably making the 36-hole cut for the 24th consecutive year, which would break the record he shares with Gary Player and Fred Couples.

That’s not the way Woods sees it. When asked what he thought he was capable of doing this week, he said, “If everything comes together, I think I can get one more.”

After a few seconds of silence while a packed media auditorium waited for him to elaborate, he added with a smile: “Do I need to describe it any more than that, or are we good?”

Woods and McIlroy, the PGA Tour’s four-star generals in its protracted Cold War with LIV Golf, held their pre-tournament news conferences about 90 minutes apart Tuesday, Woods first in his customary 11 a.m. slot.

He has looked sharp in a pair of nine-hole practice rounds, but the ask here — walking 72 holes on hilly terrain — is big for a man who has spent an inordinate amount of time on the operating table.

“Can he win here? You know what? Yeah,” said Couples, who played with Woods and Justin Thomas on Tuesday. “I just watched him play nine holes and it’s only nine holes on a Tuesday, but he never mishit a shot.”

Woods still strikes the ball as well as just about anyone in the game. His short game remains sublime. The golf is not the problem. It’s the elements — rain and cold are his enemies — and the task of putting one foot in front of the other for five hours on four consecutive days.