Professional golfer Tiger Woods was involved in a rollover crash on Friday, March 27, and it just happened to be right as the golfer was making his comeback. Woods had just come back from back surgery to play his first game of 2026 in the TGL finals on Tuesday, March 24, so the crash comes at bad timing.
Just before the crash, Woods opened up about his back surgery and how he was physically feeling. In October 2025, Woods has the surgery, which was a lumbar disc replacement to take care of a collapsed disc and chronic pain.
“This procedure generally provides 60-70 percent relief of the patient’s chronic low back pain by eliminating the motion at that level and creating more room for the nerve roots,” the Keystone Spine and Pain Management Center stated of the procedure. “This procedure also eliminates the possibility of a recurrent disc herniation, as all the disc is eliminated. Because of Tiger’s previous surgeries, he was not a candidate for disc replacement.”
They add that “procedures such as this can produce excellent relief of back pain, and patients can generally return to their activities of daily living, although it is rare for them to be completely pain-free.”
Tiger Woods Admitted It Was Difficult to Come Back From Surgery This Time Around
Speaking during a press conference at the SoFi Center at the Jupiter Links Golf Club semifinals on Tuesday, March 24, Woods was asked how he feels physically now that he’s back after his surgery. He was honest and said that even though he “feels fine,” it’s different coming back from an injury at an older age.
“Feels fine physically. It was just interesting the shots because usually you have more of a rhythm when you’re actually playing a normal round of golf, hitting shots,” he told reporters. “Here it feels like I’m getting iced a bit at times. It’s just a different rhythm.”
He added, “It’s like when you play Ryder Cup or Presidents Cups and you play in foursomes. Some matches you just don’t hit a putt for like 10, 11 holes and all of a sudden you’ve got to make a three-footer.” He explained to the crowd, “That’s kind of what it feels like here.”
He also talked about how he hadn’t been out there in a while, so it felt new again. “I had a couple drives I had to hit and then a couple putts,” Woods stated during the chat. “It was just — for me, it was different because I haven’t really done this. I’ve been watching these guys do it. They make it look easy. I haven’t done it in a while. It was a lot of fun, though, to be a part of it.”
Tiger Woods Says He ‘Doesn’t Recover’ Like He Did at ’24, 25′
When asked if he was closer to a decision about the Masters, Woods talked about his injury recovery. He admitted that his body isn’t recovering like it used to in his 20s.
“As I said, I’ve been trying. Just this body is — it doesn’t recover like it did when it was 24, 25,” he explained. “It doesn’t mean I’m not trying. I’ve been trying for a while. I’ve had a couple bad injuries here over the past years that I’ve had to fight through and it’s taken some time. But I keep trying. I want to play. I love the tournament.”
Tiger Woods Opened Up About His Health Before Crash