Tiger Woods practices on Tuesday 9 April 2024 ahead of The Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Course in Augusta, Georgia, USA The Masters tees off at Augusta on Thursday, with Tiger Woods again in the field without any tournament preparation under his belt due to illness and injury. Picture: Christer Höglund/ TT News Agency via AFP
With Tiger Woods reportedly giving up sex for Masters week, Rory McIlroy’s former agent Chubby Chandler reckons that’s no big deal.
The Masters tees off at Augusta National on Thursday, with Woods again in the field without any tournament preparation under his belt due to illness and injury.
However, to sway things in his favour as his 48-year-old body may not be able to withstand 72 or even 36 holes, a source close to Woods said the 15-time major winner would be solely focussed on golf this week.
Currently single, Woods - whose image was tarnished by a sex scandal back in 2010 - is not ready to mingle.
“He’s focused. He’s working really hard in the gym. He’s eating right. He’s even eliminated sex,” said an unnamed ‘friend’ of Woods last week.
“He does that now when he’s preparing: no sex until the tournament is over. He doesn’t want anything to take away his focus.”
Speaking to BoyleSports, who offer the latest Masters Golf Odds, Chandler weighed in on Wood’s ‘new approach.
“Tiger has had 55 years worth of sex in 20 years. In a way now, Tiger isn’t that interesting to me at The Masters but as soon as he shoots two-under on the first day you’re like ‘oh, hang on’ and you start watching again. He is that sort of a person,” said Chandler.
“It might be his last before he starts teeing off at eight in the morning with a very old Davis Love and the like.”
It’s highly unlikely Woods will contend, although there appears to be no problems with his swing as witnessed on the practice days. Under tournament conditions though, the expected performance of Woods’ is a complete unknown given his various physical ailments.
Still, Chandler acknowledges that with Woods playing there is increased interest in the year’s first major.
“But the ticket price has held up a bit because of him. I don’t want to say he’s not going to be competitive this year because you never ever know with him. When he won in 2019 that was just unbelievable. You hesitate to write him off, but I can’t see it.
“What I hope he doesn’t do is not complete the first 36 holes again. All this coming off because you’re sick or coming off for something else, you don’t want to do that very often because people see through that quite quickly.
“In golf we’re a bit short of a figurehead. Rory was it and has now pulled back for his own good which I agree with, [Scottie] Scheffler is not that person, Phil has gone off into the sunset.
If you ask 20 people in the street, who do they want to watch there would probably be 10-12 different answers.”