Tiger Woods and defending winner Phil Mickelson are both in the field for the US PGA Championship next week!
Mickelson declared his retirement from golf in February when incendiary statements he made about the Saudi-backed golf league surfaced, while Woods has only competed once since being involved in a vehicle accident in February 2021, at last month’s Masters.
Woods, who nearly lost his right leg in the accident, started with a one-under-par 71 at Augusta National but finished the week 13 over par and in 47th position.
After his final round at Augusta, Woods said: “I don’t quite have the endurance I would like to have had, but as of a few weeks ago, didn’t even know if I was going to play in this event.
“To go from that to here, we’re excited about the prospects of the future, about training, about getting into that gym and doing some other stuff to get my leg stronger, which we haven’t been able to do because it needed more time to heal.
“I think it needs a couple more days to heal after this, but we’ll get back after it, and we’ll get into it.”
Mickelson became golf’s oldest major champion at last year’s PGA Championship when, less than a month shy of turning 51, he held off Brooks Koepka and Louis Oosthuizen to triumph by two shots at Kiawah Island’s Ocean Course.
He is one of only 13 players in golf history to have won at least three of the four majors. He has also come second in the US Open Championship six times but has never won it.
Mickelson, who had gradually dropped past the hundredth spot in the world rankings, jumped to number 32.
Over the course of his nearly thirty-year career, he has been in the top ten in the world for over 700 weeks, reaching second place on multiple occasions but never first, during a period dominated by Tiger Woods, of whom Michelson was one of the few challengers capable of putting him in difficulty.
He has won 52 tournaments in his career, including 43 on the PGA Tour. For the first time, he won two World Golf Championship competitions in 2009, the Ca Championship and the HSBC Championship.
He has played in the last nine Ryder Cups as a member of Team USA. He has been a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame since 2012.
