Tiger Woods withdraws from Arnold Palmer Invitational, but hopes to be back soon
Tiger Woods has withdrawn from the Arnold Palmer Invitational on Monday due to the neck load. While Woods suffered the injury, a fresh setback on the health of the game's most popular player often alarmed the entire golf community.
Recognizing that level of concern, and being aware that a series of lower back operations almost made its end Woods tried to soften the expected response to his exit from the Palmer event, which he won eight times.
"My lower back is fine, and I have no worries in the long run," Woods wrote his Twitter account.
Woods, 43, indicated that he suffered from the neck tension for "a few weeks", and added, "I have received treatment, but it has not been improved enough to play."
Woods's neck problem may indeed be small, but for many years, when he struggled to play through innumerable weaknesses, Woods often retired from a tournament with a similar brief statement about an apparently insignificant injury. Eventually he missed dozens of events and his absence at competitions lasted months because of multiple, serious knee applications and four back operations.
Woods offered an encouraging sentence on Monday: "I hope I'm ready for the players."
The players' championship, the flagship of the PGA Tour and often called a fifth big golf championship, runs from 14 to 17 March. Woods optimism about playing in the tournament will help keep calm and worried about his golf condition for now.
But if he missed that tournament, then probably a considerable panic will arise about his ability to continue a startling comeback that was one of the most uplifting stories in the sport last year. The Masters starts in five weeks, on April 11.
Six months ago, Woods completed an unforeseen return to the higher wave of golf and ended a five-year winless drought, with a win over the concluding race championship. It was the 18th tournament that Woods played in 2018 – his first full schedule of events since 2015. He did not miss a tournament that he would appear last year.
This year Woods already played three times. . Eight days ago he finished tenth for the Mexico Championship. At that event Woods did not mention any neck discomfort and he did not say Monday how the injury occurred. In his two other events this year, Woods tied for the 20th at the Farmer Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in late January, and he shared the 15th place at the Genesis Open in Riviera mid-February.
Woods won the last Arnold Palmer Invitational in 2013, although last year he made the ranking on the event board before he stumbled into the last holes to finish fifth.
"I would like to send my regret to the Palmer family and fans of Orlando," wrote Woods on Monday on Twitter. "The connection with Arnold makes it one of my favorite tournaments and I am disappointed that I am wrong."
Woods, who has won 80 PGA Tour events and 14 major championships, has increased his world golf ranking to 12th place. That ranking was as low as the 1199th, while he fights different leg and back complaints.