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 The world number one, whose back pain surfaced last year and
intensified this season, will miss the Masters next week for the
first time in his career after being advised by his doctors on
Monday to have a microdiscectomy in Park City, Utah.
Woods, whose back problems forced him to retire from last month's
Honda Classic before he skipped the Arnold Palmer Invitational, his
traditional Masters warm-up event, has been told by his doctors that
he will miss "several upcoming tournaments" during his
rehabilitation.
His surgery involved the removal of herniated disc material that
pressed on a nerve root or the spinal cord.
"In general, it takes six weeks for the soft tissues to heal, even
from the microdiscectomy surgery," Michael Leighton, a surgeon at
the Palm Beach Orthopaedic Institute in Florida, told Reuters by
telephone on Friday.
"Tiger certainly can be working his short game sooner than that,
probably after three or four weeks at the latest.
"But it will take him six weeks before he is ready to start swinging
a club with his usual ability. He will probably be ready to play
somewhere around three months after his surgery."
An absence from competition of that length would rule Woods out of
the year's second major, the U.S. Open to be played at Pinehurst,
North Carolina in mid-June.
David Geier, an orthopaedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist
based in Charleston, South Carolina, predicted that Woods could be
out of competitive golf for up to four months.
"You never know for sure how it will take, and sometimes it depends
on how long the pressure on the nerve lasted," said Geier who like
Leighton has also not worked with Woods.
"It depends on exactly what he had done but if it was just a
single-level, herniated disc where there was just one disc causing
pressure on the nerve roots and there were no other issues, I would
say he will be out for three to four months.
"Some of that, of course, will depend on how quickly he gets his
strength back and how quickly his pain goes away."
PHYSIOLOGICAL FACTORS
While recovery times differ for individuals based on many
physiological factors, neurosurgeon Charles Rich, who operated on
Woods, has said the 14-times major champion will begin intensive
rehabilitation within a week.
Following further assessment, Woods could begin chipping and putting
in three weeks with the aim of returning to competition "sometime
this summer", according to Rich.
"Chipping and putting do not require much twisting, so this is
possible," Selene Parekh, an associate professor of surgery in the
Division of Orthopaedic Surgery at Duke University, told Reuters.
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"However full swings will not be possible until his back muscles and
core muscles have been strengthened and that can take between six
and 10 weeks. Overall, I think he will be out of competition for
four to six months."
Woods's lengthy history of injury began with a troublesome left
knee, first operated on when he was a freshman at Stanford
University in 1994. Three more operations on that knee have
followed.
He has also suffered injuries to his ankle and neck, his right and
left Achilles tendons and fractures in his leg, which he defiantly
played through on the way to victory at the 2008 U.S. Open after a
19-hole playoff against Rocco Mediate.
Though Woods has missed two British Opens, one U.S. Open and one PGA
Championship since 2008 because of injuries, surgeons believe that
his long-term prognosis looks relatively bright.
"Tiger took the long-term view of where he is going to be by having
the spine surgery now," Leighton said. "He will be over that and all
the other injuries are now really behind him.
"He has had a successful ACL (anterior cruciate ligament)
construction, he has had a successful Achilles (surgery), and the
other injuries are things he has worked out from a therapy and
training perspective.
"The main issue for him aged 38 is that he is still battling against
guys who are 23, 24, 25 who are chasing the dream. Those guys are in
good shape and they have the skills that do start to compare with
where Tiger is, or was."
Woods, who triumphed five times on the PGA Tour in 2013 but failed
to play his best at the majors, has not clinched a grand slam title
since his playoff win at the 2008 U.S. Open.
He has long targeted the record 18 majors piled up by his childhood
idol Jack Nicklaus and must now deal with a bad back, the bane of
many golfers who have suffered ailments from the game's repetitive
twisting and torqueing pressure.
"A study came out showing that over 90 percent of athletes with
microdiscectomy can return to their pre-injury, elite levels,"
Parekh said. "His long-term prognosis from the back is good."
(Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes in Los Angeles;
editing by Gene
Cherry)
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