AUGUSTA, Ga. — As players prepare for this week’s Masters, everyone wants to know about Tiger Woods.
How is he feeling?
How is he playing?
Woods, a five-time Masters winner, hasn’t played since withdrawing from the Genesis Invitational in February with the flu, skipping the Player Championship in March.
He arrived to Augusta on Sunday, walked around and did some chipping and putting.
On Monday he played nine holes and Will Zalatoris had a front-row seat for it, playing with him.
And the early reviews were positive.
“He played great today,’’ Zalatoris reported. “He outdrove me a couple times, so there was some chirping going on. He looks great. He’s moving as well as he can be. With everything he’s gone through, it’s pretty amazing to see how good he’s swinging it.’’
Zalatoris missed last year after having a similar micro-disc back surgery to the one Woods had and he said Woods has been a helpful resource to him during his rehab.
“It’s kind of more of just, ‘Hey, how you feeling? You feel this? You feel that?,’’’ Zalatoris said.
“The patience game is really hard. Obviously, he had gone through way more than what I had gone through. Having the same surgeons, kind of the same team, just having the conversation about, ‘Hey, after this amount of time how do you feel? After this amount of time how do you feel?’
“I saw him in October at his charity event and spent some time with him on the range there and wasn’t up to hitting more than (a few) irons. I talked to him a little bit about my golf swing. At the time, I still was having some residual (affects).’’
Woods, who’s trying to make a record-breaking 24th consecutive Masters cut, is scheduled to speak to reporters on Tuesday.
