Faldo: Tiger Admitted “I’m Done” At 2017 Masters Dinner

Sir Nick Faldo has seen Tiger Woods at the Masters’ Champions Dinner since 1998. But at last year’s event, Faldo was surprised when he overheard Woods admitting he “was done” after the numerous back surgeries had taken their toll.

GolfWeek’s Kevin Casey has the details. Luckily for Woods and golf, the prediction was decidedly premature.

Everyone is pretty much aware Woods has had four back surgeries and dealt with plenty of pain in the process. But as Woods has posted five top 10s in official PGA Tour events in this 2018 comeback, it’s a little easy to forget just how dire his future in golf seemed very recently.

There was the Hero World Challenge press conference he had in December 2015 – soon after his third back surgery – in which he sounded hauntingly dispirited about his recovery and the odds of a comeback in golf.

“There’s really nothing I can look forward to, nothing I can build towards,” Woods said at that 2015 press conference. “It’s literally just day by day and week by week and time by time. Where is the light at the end of the tunnel? I don’t know.”

And then this…

“I think pretty much everything beyond this (14 majors and 79 wins) will be gravy,” Woods said in 2015. “If that’s all it entails, then I’ve had a pretty good run.”

“What he’s been able to do, Dan, is unbelievable, remarkable,” Faldo said. “To go from a frozen back, I know he whispered to another Masters champion two Masters dinners ago, ‘I’m done. I won’t play golf again.’ And here we are 18 months later.”

“He was in agony. He was in pain,” Faldo said on The Dan Patrick Show. “The pain down his legs, nothing enjoyable, he couldn’t move.”

Which makes this season such a remarkable and shocking positive rally.