Woods reveals the Northern Irishman sought his advice; McIlroy is not playing at this year’s 144th golf Open Championship on his friend’s advice.
Rory McIlroy
By James Corrigan, Reporting for The British Telegraph.
The current world’s leading golfer, Rory McIlroy, is not playing at the 144th Open Championship being held at St. Andrews golf courses in the UK. The Northern Irishman went to Woods for advice after rupturing his angle ligament. Woods told him it was not worth it playing with an injury.
Of course, Woods not only played through the pain of a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his knee and a stress fracture of his tibia at the 2008 US Open but also famously won that major at Torrey Pines. However, he preached caution to his young friend after last Saturday’s football injury,[the first week of July, 2015].
“Rory sent me a photo the day he did it,” Woods said. “He said, ‘You’ve been through a lot of injuries over the years’. So he picked my brain a little bit. We had a good talk. He’s doing the right thing, taking care of his body first before he gets back out here. No doubt, he’s frustrated that he’s not going to be able to play in the Open, especially here at St Andrews, with how well he’s been playing of late. And this course really does set up well for him, too. That’s the way it goes.”
Woods was talking to ESPN after playing three holes with five young UK amateurs and if they were gobsmacked to be in his presence then he was open-mouthed at what he encountered. St Andrews happens to be his “favourite course on earth” but he really did not expect to find it so green and running so slow.
Tiger Woods
“I was shocked,” Woods said. “I had seen photos of it a month ago – it was bone-dry. It looked like it was going to be one of those dust bowls again; hard, fast, like the years I’ve played St Andrews. They got big rain and a lot of sun. It’s totally changed.
“I’m going to have to do a little bit of feel around the greens, my putting. I wasn’t expecting the firmness to be that soft. We made ball marks on the greens. I don’t ever remember making ball marks around this place. But I love this place. It never gets old. I love coming back. All the memories come rushing back.”
As do the supporters. In which other sport and in which other venue could the whisper go around that “Tiger’s in town” and a few hundred fans get the opportunity to enter the arena free of charge and walk within a few metres of the 14-time major champion? There was even a dog in attendance.
They got to see the other side of Woods, attending the flag for the starry-eyed quintet and sharing jokes and advice. Yes, he did so because of his duties to his main sponsor, Nike, and perhaps it would be difficult to imagine the cold-eyed champion of yesteryear beginning his major preparations in such laid-back style. No doubt, some will use this almost surreal scenario as a gauge of how far Woods has fallen. But for the lucky onlookers who took the trip to the famous links this was some way to start Open week.
Woods flew into the nearby Leuchars airfield at about 8am and, after a workout in the Old Course Hotel’s gym, was on the range by 11am. There to greet him were Ben Kinsley, 19-year-old from Fife, Inci Mehmet, an 18-year-old from Surrey, Lauren Whyte, an 18-year-old from St Andrews itself, Matthew McCulloch, a 17-year-old from Dumfries and Galloway, and Conor Purcell, a 17-year-old from Bangor, Co Down. All of them have representative honours and all have joined Woods in the Nike camp.
Tiger Woods (R) with his new caddie Joe LaCava. (Photo by Robert Laberge/Getty Images).
Still, they would not have banked on this experience with the two-time St Andrews winner. They accompanied Woods to the 16th tee and played in. Woods hit the 16th in two, but neglected to putt, playing the role of flag superintendent instead. And on the Road Hole, the 17th, and the 18th, he also picked up. Not because he was playing poorly; indeed after his horror show at last month’s US Open – where, with an 80, 76 he shot the highest 36-hole score of his 19-year career – he thinks his game turned around at the Greenbrier last week. He is plainly here to win, as unlikely as that may sound.
“That Sunday at Greenbrier was probably the best I hit it in two years,” Woods said. “That was fun. Chris [Como, his coach] told me it was the first time I led the field in proximity to the hole with my iron game. I feel like everything’s coming around. I still need to get a feel for how this golf course is chasing.”
But all the serious practice could wait for another round; Woods was seemingly too wrapped up in chatting to the wannabes. As a keen golf historian, he was fascinated to hear that young Kinsley is the great, great grandson of Willie Auchterlonie, the St Andrews pro who was Open champion and whose name still adorns a shop just up the road from the Old Course.
Back in 1893, it was a little different. Old Willie did not have hundreds watching him walk up the 18th on the Saturday before and certainly did not cause chaos with the cars who braked in the road a little later to see him open a corporate stop-off called One Nike Place. Woods is still the only golfer who can stop the traffic. Source: The Telegraph, additional graphics by TZ Business News.
