Here’s why Tiger Woods won’t be wearing Nike at The Masters.
When Tiger Woods makes his much-anticipated return to the putting greens at Augusta National Golf Club on Thursday, he won’t be wearing the iconic Nike swoosh logo that he’s donned for so many years. It’s very likely that fans may be wondering: What happened with Nike and Tiger?
Red — A tribute to his mother’s heritage and his power color
It started with a passion. The passion of competing. Of competing against ourselves. The field. The course. Life. Out of that passion, @SunDayRed rises.
Good morning, Winners! Welcome back to the Morning Win. Thanks so much for tapping in with us today. We appreciate you here.
It’s about that time, people. The tradition, unlike any other, has returned. The Masters is back and Tiger Woods is in it again. He’s been a fixture in this tournament for so much of our lives. For most of it, we’ve expected him to dominate.
Sure, he’s old. But he’s still Tiger Woods. And he told us, “If everything comes together, I think I can get one more.”
He’s earned having that mentality with his long history of dominance on this course. Of course, Woods believes that. Why shouldn’t he? This is the same guy who Augusta altered its course for back in 1997. I’m always going to give that guy the benefit of the doubt. Plus, we’ve seen what it looks like when everything comes together for him. Just go back and watch clips from his incredible 2019 run at The Masters that still feels so improbable today.
But we’ve got to be realistic. As much as we want to believe in this guy, rooting for Tiger Woods at The Masters in 2024 is simply hoping he can complete the course these days.
While that 2019 Masters run does exist, it feels like centuries ago. When you look at Woods’ recent history, things aren’t so rosy.
That’s why Woods simply making the cut would be an accomplishment. A good 36 holes from Tiger would be great. If he can finish the tournament? Whew, boy. We’re cooking with gas there.
The reality is that this Tiger isn’t that superhuman Tiger we’re all used to—he’s a bit closer to you and me these days. That’s OK. That’s life. That’s what makes him even going for it here so special.
Let’s hope he can give us a few special moments here to cheer for. We don’t know when it’ll be the last one.
It seems that those questions have been answered. Well, at least they were for federal investigators, anyway.
Mizuhara is reportedly in negotiations with federal prosecutors to plead guilty to theft, according to the New York Times.Ohtani has been cooperating with the federal investigation into the theft and an MLB investigation that seemingly puts him in the clear.
Things are still confusing, though. We don’t have any answers to how on Earth Mizuhara managed to move such massive amounts of money from Ohtani’s accounts without being caught.
Once details of this investigation are revealed, we may get the answers we’re looking for. Until then, we’ll just be confused.
SO. MUCH. CAITLIN. CLARK.
Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Caitlin Clark hasn’t even been drafted yet and she’s already a huge part of the WNBA’s plans for this season. We’ll see a lot of her on TV this year — more than we’ll see the defending WNBA champs, the Las Vegas Aces.
Meg Hall has more here:
“On Wednesday, they released their television broadcast schedule for the upcoming season, which will have several games shown on networks like ESPN, ABC and CBS but will also spotlight the Indiana Fever with 36 nationally televised games. That’s more than the defending champion Las Vegas Aces (35 games) and the runner-up New York Liberty (31 games). That’s also a 35 percent increase from the 2023 season when the Fever had 22 games on national television.”
I’ve got to be honest, folks. This is ridiculous. To be fair, all of them aren’t on ESPN. Some games will appear on Ion and NBA TV. You can argue that those games might not count. But still, man. This is a lot of Caitlin Clark. It’s easy to see why players like Diana Taurasi will go so hard at her. The league is doing all this for Clark and she hasn’t done anything yet.
Good luck, Caitlin. You’re going to need it this year.
Couples isn’t the only pro who has opted for a brightly colored ball.
Editor’s Note: This story was originally published on April 7, 2023. It has since been upated.
Fred Couples has played on the PGA Tour Champions since 2010, but as the 1992 Masters winner, he has a lifetime invitation to the event at Augusta National Golf Club.
If you’ve been watching Couples’ run at Augusta the past few years, you may have noticed something that differentiates him from the rest of the field: He uses a yellow golf ball.
The reason for this is quite simple — it helps him spot the ball better. He’s not the only golfer that has opted to make the switch to easier balls to track, but that doesn’t mean it’s a popular choice with everyone on the tour.
Tiger Woods told Golf.com that other golfers — himself included — often rib Couples for the choice. Woods said that he always thought yellow balls were for “hacks,” though he acknowledged that he would use one if he thought it would help his score.
“We give [Fred] grief all the time about using the yellow ball,” Woods said. “But he absolutely loves it because he can’t see anymore. You should see the font on his phone; it’s like one letter per screen.”
The yellow cover apparently provides no advantage (or disadvantage) beyond the increased visibility, but obviously, even a former Masters winner like Couples isn’t immune from some slight mocking about it.
[afflinkbutton text=”Shop Fred Couples’ yellow golf ball” link=”https://pga-tour-superstore.pxf.io/oqqqDe”]
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Golf carts make perfect sense to me! But apparently not to anyone else.
Editor’s Note: A version of this story was originally published April 5, 2022.
As we all know, Tiger Woods injured his leg in the horrific car accident he was in 2021. It’s still an issue. He can physically play golf well, but as he’s said, walking the course is more of an issue.
This point from Woods brought up what I thought was a very valid question in my mind which was, “why would Tiger not just use a golf cart?” Yup. I asked my For the Win coworkers. I had to.
Let me preface this by saying I don’t know nothing about golf, y’all. The closest I’ve gotten to a legitimate course was Top Golf. And I’m not very good at that. (I can hit the ball kind of far but not super far, you know?)
Luckily, my colleagues didn’t roast me there. Instead, they told me golf carts are basically not allowed. Which was news to me! I mean, golf carts exist for golf. Why would they not be allowed, right? Right.
That sent me on a (slightly) deep dive into why carts are taboo in professional golf. Here’s what I came up with.
[afflinkbutton text=”Watch the Masters on Fubo” link=”https://www.fubo.tv/welcome?irad=343747&irmp=1205322&subId1=FTW&subId2=Masters&subId3=2024″]
Tiger Woods was forced to withdraw from the 2023 Masters after he made the cut in terrible conditions. It was rainy, windy and the temperature wasn’t what you’d call comfortable.
Players were forced to wear sweaters, winter hats, gloves and anything else in an effort to stay comfortable.
That kind of weather is less than ideal for Woods.
On Tuesday, Woods spoke with the media at Augusta National Golf Club and admitted he prefers hot temps.
“I ache. No, I ache every day. And I prefer it warm and humid and hot. And I know we’re going to get some thunderstorms. So at least it will be hot. It won’t be like last year.”
The rest of the week, however, looks gorgeous and a high of 83 is expected for Sunday’s final round. Exactly the weather Woods will need if he wants his body to perform at the highest level.
As of 2 p.m. ET Wednesday, Woods was listed at -115 to make the cut. He stands at +14000 to win (140/1, $100 would win $14,000), and +330 to finish inside the top 20.
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Koepka won’t share what he learned from last year’s Masters loss, but he certainly won’t let it happen again.
AUGUSTA, Ga. — As a kid growing up in South Florida, Brooks Koepka always dreamed of winning major championships when he was practicing at his dad’s course.
That desire to be the best has fueled Koepka for 33 years and guided him to an incredible tally of five major championships in a six-year span (two of which were riddled with injuries). While he’s never won at Augusta National Golf Club, Koepka has finished runner-up twice and in the top 10 three times in eight previous Masters appearances.
His most recent close call for a green jacket occurred at last year’s Masters, when Koepka held at least a share of the lead after each of the first three rounds before he was caught by Jon Rahm on the final 18. Koepka ended up tied for second with Phil Mickelson.
After his PGA Championship win last summer, Koepka said he learned a lesson as to why he lost his lead Sunday at Augusta. While he still won’t share exactly what he learned, he’s vowed he won’t let it happen again.
“I think if I get the chance this year, I won’t be thinking that way,” Koepka said during his pre-tournament press conference Tuesday.
Koepka has nine wins on the PGA Tour and three since he joined LIV Golf, but he doesn’t shy away from the fact that the major championships are what’s most important to him. He’s well aware of his stature and current place in the pro golf history books. Major championships make for a lasting legacy.
“Even today, that’s what I first see, that’s what I think you’re judged by, your legacy, what you’re defined by. I’ve always said it, I think you can tell exactly how (many majors) Jack, Tiger, Arnold, Tom, you can tell, all these guys, how many majors they won,” explained Koepka. “It’s tough to tell how many events they won, but I know that there’s one sure-fire way to figure out who is who is by major championships.”
How aware is he? Like the NFL players who can name which quarterbacks drafted ahead of them, Koepka knows he’s tied with James Braid, John Henry Taylor, Byron Nelson, Peter Thomson and Seve Ballesteros on the all-time major winners list and that there are still 14 other names in front of him.
When it comes to players with 25-49 rounds under their belt at Augusta, Koepka is third in scoring average at 71.56 behind Rahm (70.50) and Jordan Spieth (70.66). He doesn’t know what it is about Augusta that brings out his best game, but he sure does wish he could do it more often.
“I just think there’s just something special about this place. You kind of drive down Magnolia Lane and it gets the juices flowing,” said Koepka. “And I think everybody that drives down it gets pretty excited. And, you know, first major of the year. And that’s what you play the game for, is to win here, win a major, and that’s the goal.”
In classic Koepka fashion, he also sarcastically challenged a reporter for asking if 59 was attainable at Augusta National:
Q:It sounds like the course is already pretty dialed this week, but under softer or optimal scoring conditions do you think 59 is obtainable on this golf course?
BROOKS KOEPKA: Have you played here?
Q:Not yet.
BROOKS KOEPKA: I can tell by the question.
Q:What number is attainable in your mind? 63’s the low.
BROOKS KOEPKA: I mean, now, anything’s attainable. But, yeah, if you want to go play the members tees and maybe play like 15 holes, yeah, I could do that.
If you didn’t think Koepka was already back to his old self after the PGA Championship, that exchange surely signals he is.
Now healthy following a couple of years of injury struggles, Koepka knows he’s ready for the challenge that awaits this week. Following his Monday practice round, he noted the course “was as firm as I’ve seen it in maybe four, five years” and that green speeds were already near a weekend pace.
For a player who constantly rises to the occasion, that’s music to a confident Koepka’s ears and bad news for the other 88 players in the field.
Here’s everything you need to know for Tiger’s return to Augusta National.
AUGUSTA, Ga. — The Big Cat is back on the course this week with a shot at history at the 2024 Masters.
Tiger Woods will make his 26th appearance at Augusta National this week, where he’s looking to set the all-time record for consecutive Masters cuts made with 24 in a row. The five-time Masters champion tied Fred Couples (1983-2007) and Gary Player (1959-1982) for the current record of 23 at last year’s tournament before he withdrew ahead of the third round.
“Well, this tournament has meant so much to me in my life and my family. I think I’ve been playing here for, what, 29 years now,” Woods said during his pre-tournament press conference on Tuesday. “It’s been a part of my life to have won here as my first major as a pro. Hugging my dad, as you saw; then a full circle in 2019 to hug my son.”
“It has meant a lot to my family. It’s meant a lot to me,” he added. “I always want to keep playing in (the Masters).”
After a weathey delayed the first round, the 15-time major champion will now begin his quest for history at 3:54 p.m. ET on Thursday alongside Jason Day and Max Homa.
Featured group coverage will air on Masters.com and the Masters app, as well as on Paramount+. The first-round television broadcast runs from 3-7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN. SiriusXM radio will call the action from 2-8 p.m. ET.
Across 25 starts and 96 rounds at the Masters, Woods has a low round of 65 and a scoring average of 71.10. He’s finished inside the top 10 in more than half of his starts (14), 12 of which were top fives.
Woods begins his 26th Masters on Thursday at 1:24 p.m. ET
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Tiger Woods has been playing at Augusta National Golf Club long enough that he remembers his first trip down Magnolia Lane in darkness in 1995.
During his Masters debut, he stayed at the Crow’s Nest, the intimate accommodations for amateur champions in the white antebellum clubhouse, and watched Sam Snead, Byron Nelson and Gene Sarazen hit the opening tee shot on Thursday morning.
Just two years later, Woods won his first of five Green Jackets in record fashion and set the menu for the Champions Dinner, and smiled at the memory of watching the three legendary champions “drinking my milkshakes.”
For Woods, the mission hasn’t change. He’d like to win a sixth Green Jacket at the 88th Masters and tie Jack Nicklaus for the most career victories at the Masters, pick up his 16th career major championship and 83rd official PGA Tour title to break a tie with Snead for the most victories in a career.
Tiger Woods follows his shot from the No. 8 tee during a practice round for the 2024 Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club. (Photo: Michael Madrid-USA TODAY Network)
“If everything comes together, I can get one more,” he said of the Green Jacket during his Tuesday pre-tournament press conference.
Woods, 48, hasn’t played in a Tour event since he withdrew after hitting his tee shot at the seventh hole of the Genesis Invitational, citing illness, in February. A day earlier he complained of back spasms. On Tuesday, he gave his first explanation for why he elected to skip the Florida Swing and entered this year’s Masters with only one full competitive round under his belt.
“I wasn’t ready to play. My body wasn’t ready. My game wasn’t ready,” he said. “I thought that when I (played in the Bahamas in December), once a month would be a really nice rhythm. Hasn’t worked out that way. But now we have major championships every month from here through July. So now the once a month hopefully kicks in.”
Tiger Woods: “If everything comes together, I can get one more”
Woods paid a visit to Augusta National a week earlier for a scouting trip with Justin Thomas and played with his longtime friend and business partner, Rob McNamara, and Masters chairman Fred Ridley. He walked the front nine on Sunday with three clubs, played the back nine Monday with Will Zalatoris and the front nine with Thomas and past Masters champion Fred Couples.
“He said his back is doing OK. I think last year it was so bad that a lot of things just wore him down,” said Couples, referencing how Woods withdrew Saturday before the third round of the 2023 Masters began after making the 36-hole cut for the 23rd consecutive time, tying a record held by Couples and Gary Player.
“Can he win here? You know what, yeah. I just watched him play nine holes, and nine holes is only nine holes on a Tuesday, but he never mis-hits a shot,” Couples said. “But the idea of making a cut, I think he would laugh at that because he’s not here to – that’s a huge record, but he’s here to win. He’s here to play really, really hard.”
Woods had his right ankle fused shortly after last year’s Masters, an injury that forced him to miss the remaining three majors last year and not play again until the Hero World Challenge. Woods was asked several times for updates on the health of his body, which already had endured countless surgeries before he was involved in a single-car crash in February 2021 that nearly resulted in the amputation of his right leg.
Tiger Woods tees off on No. 3 during a practice round for the 2024 Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club. (Photo: Rob Schumacher-USA TODAY Sports)
“I hurt every day,” he said. “I ache every day. And I prefer it warm and humid and hot. And I know we’re going to get some thunderstorms. So at least it will be hot. It won’t be like last year.”
Woods has said repeatedly that his body won’t be able to withstand playing more than once a month and it is still to be seen if it can withstand walking four straight days on the hilliest and arguably most difficult walk on Tour.
“Tiger is Tiger, he’s different than all of us but it’s hard to do this when you’re not playing all the time,” said past U.S. Open champion Geoff Ogilvy, who is serving as an ESPN commentator this week. “It’s really different when you don’t do this week in, week out, it really is.”
“There’s no doubt he’s going to hit a lot of good shots, and there’s no doubt he’s going to make some putts, but can he sustain that over two, three, four days?” said two-time U.S. Open champion Curtis Strange, who is also commentating for ESPN.
Strange said the uncertainty of Woods’s health has him wondering if he’s shifting into a role of becoming a ceremonial golfer, a role that Arnold Palmer eventually accepted, and Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson resisted for as long as possible.
“It didn’t matter what he shot,” Strange said of Palmer. “It didn’t matter about the shots he hit. We just kind of wanted him there, and I think the world thinks the same thing about Tiger.”
“I can’t see him finishing 50th every week and being happy,” Ogilvy added.
When the subject of becoming a Masters starter and simply hitting the opening tee shot to the tournament was broached to Woods during his press conference, he was quick to shoot it down.
“No, I have not thought about being a starter here, no,” he said to a roomful of chuckles.
When the reporter attempted to rephrase his question and asked how Woods would handle the situation in the future when he didn’t feel as if he could still another Green Jacket, Woods refused to consider the scenario.
“Well, I still think they can. So I don’t know when that day is, when that day comes, but I still think that I can. I haven’t got to that point where I don’t think I can.”
Woods begins his 26th Masters on Thursday at 1:24 p.m. ET alongside Jason Day and Max Homa, and as Couples noted, “the last thing he’s thinking about is making the cut.”
Is Tiger Woods going to captain the 2025 United States Ryder Cup team? He sure seemed to hint things are heading in that direction.
Woods spoke with members of the media Tuesday ahead of the 2024 Masters at Augusta National Golf Club, his first tournament appearance since withdrawing from the 2024 Genesis Invitational because of an illness. He was asked about myriad topics, from his pursuit of a 24th consecutive made cut, his body and Masters memories.
However, his answer to a question about the Ryder Cup makes it seem as if Woods will soon again be involved in the biennial competition between the U.S. and Europe, this time from a captaincy standpoint.
“We’re still talking about it,” Woods said while smiling when asked directly about his current position related to the captaincy.
Woods spent time as a vice captain in 2016, but his record in the Ryder Cup is one of the worst marks of his professional golf career. He’s 13-21-3 in the competition, including a 0-4 mark in his last appearance in 2018 at Le Golf National in Paris, site of the 2024 Olympic competition.
He is 4-2-2 in singles matches.
However, people have clamored since the 2023 Ryder Cup for Woods to be considered for captaincy at Bethpage Black in New York.
And it’s something he and PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh have discussed plenty in recent weeks. And according to Big Cat, there are more conversations to be had soon.
“It’s something that Seth and I are going to sit back and talk about it after this event,” Woods said. “I said I’m going to be busy for a couple weeks, so let me focus on getting through this week and hopefully getting another jacket, and then we can sit back and talk about it next week.”
Defending champion Jon Rahm now tees off at 1 p.m. ET after an early weather delay.
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Augusta National Golf Club has once again opened its gates to some of the best players in the world for the 88th Masters Tournament, and on Tuesday morning the tee times for the first two rounds were announced.
Inclement weather on Thursday morning has delayed the start of the first round by two and a half hours, as the first group will now tee off at 10:30 a.m. ET. The Honorary Starters Ceremony will begin at 10:10 a.m. ET.
LIV Golf’s Jon Rahm will begin his title defense at 1 p.m ET alongside Matt Fitzpatrick and Nick Dunlap. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler will be joined by world No. 2 Rory McIlroy and Xander Schauffele in the following group at 1:12 p.m. ET. Tiger Woods will highlight the afternoon featured groups when he tees off at 3:54 p.m. ET with Jason Day and Max Homa.
From tee times to TV and streaming info, here’s everything you need to know for the first round of the 2024 Masters at Augusta National. All times Eastern.
Thursday tee times
Time
Players
10:30 a.m. ET
Erik van Rooyen, Jake Knapp
10:42 a.m. ET
Jose Maria Olazabal, Taylor Moore, Santiago de la Fuente (a)
10:54 a.m. ET
Danny Willett, Austin Eckroat, Stephan Jaeger
11:06 a.m. ET
Charl Schwartzel, Luke List, Christo Lamprecht (a)
11:18 a.m. ET
Gary Woodland, Thorbjorn Olesen, Bryson DeChambeau
