The world's No. 1 golfer is looking for his first win of the year while working to prepare for the U.S. Open in two weeks.
Tiger WoodsDUBLIN, Ohio -- Tiger Woods said today he has been back practicing seriously for five or six days and his neck is feeling better but isn't 100 percent healthy. Woods, the defending champion at the Memorial Tournament, spoke before returning to play Thursday at Muirfield Village for the first time since withdrawing from The Players Championship with a neck injury on May 9.
"The swelling has gone down," Woods said. "I've got range of motion. I'm just a little bit sore at the end of the day after good practice sessions. But I've been able to recover for the next day, which I wasn't able to do prior to this. That's a good sign."
Woods will play in a nine-hole Skins Game with Memorial host Jack Nicklaus, Phil Mickelson and seven other golfers this afternoon. Thursday, he'll tee off in only his fourth tournament this season. With his withdrawal and by missing the cut at Quail Hollow, he has played in only nine full competitive rounds this season, with inflammation in a neck joint bothering him "quite a bit" the entire time.
"I had a hard time turning back. I had a hard time turning through. And the headaches were just unreal at times. That was the hard part," Woods said.
He said the injury came when he rushed to get himself ready for the Masters in April after taking a five-month break from golf after admitting to infidelity and dealing with his crumbling reputation.
"It wasn't one moment, it was a cumulative," Woods said. "Because I'd taken so much time off and was away from the game and didn't do anything that physically resembled the game of golf, then to come back and try and hit the same amount of golf balls that I was hitting, I wasn't physically ready for it.
"And the body started breaking down then, and I just kept playing through it. Oh, it will get better. It will get better. (It) just never got better. It just kept getting worse."
This will also be his first event since splitting with swing coach Hank Haney. Woods said he has "no plans" to hire a new coach and has been coaching himself by looking at video.
"That's the great thing about technology. We can use video. That's what I've been doing and been working on it that way," Woods said.