Tiger Woods who is considered the greatest golfer of all time and his career might be coming to an end. On Wednesday afternoon Tiger and his team announced his latest injury of a ruptured Achilles. It may be time for him to decide to finish his professional career and retire while he can still play.
In August of 1996, the world was introduced to what would be the greatest golfer of all time. In 1997, he won his first Masters Tournament by a record 12 strokes, making him the youngest-ever champion. Over his career, he has won 15 major championships, including five Masters, four PGA Championships, three U.S. Opens, and three Open Championships.
Woods dominated the sport in the early 2000s, holding the world No. 1 ranking for a record 683 weeks. He completed the “Tiger Slam” in 2000-2001 by winning all four major championships in a row. Along with that he has tied the record with 82 total tournament wins.
Throughout the 2000’s Tiger was the most dominant golfer the sport has ever seen. Winning nearly 22% of his tournament starts he ended up winning which is almost 10% higher than the next top 5 players. During this time Tiger was the favorite to win nearly every tournament he played in, and it didn’t stop there; in his tournaments where he held the outright lead in the first three rounds he won 94% of the time. He won 14 major championships between 1997 and 2008 where he then tore his ACL and had to recover. After that he never really was the same dealing with many back and leg injuries over the rest of his career.
Starting in 2014 he had to have three major back surgeries in a span of four years all more sever then the last. But after months of recovery from this, he returned to the top once again conquering Augusta National in 2019 giving him his 5th Masters win and 15th total major. But this would be the end of an era with him suffering a back injury after a car crash in 2021 and never returning to his past self. His injuries and age finally caught up to him and he was never the same after that. These past few years he has still competed in tournaments but has not played the way he used to.
After hearing about his ruptured Achilles along with his past back pain and leg injuries Tiger might never play another round of professional golf again. He is already 48 years old and at the end of his career so this injury might have sent him over the hump to ending his career. With this injuring requiring another surgery there is only so much his body can endure and still compete with the best in the world.
