Tiger Woods faces ‘long and tedious’ rehab on his way to breaking Jack Nicklaus’ majors record

Tiger Woods, despite what his ex-coach Hank Haney may aver, really wants to break Jack Nicklaus’ majors record.

But here’s the kicker: Woods, who said on Tuesday he has not yet begun what he expects will be a protracted healing process after undergoing his second back operation, believes he can overcome age, injuries and a slew of strong young players to win at least five more grand slam events.

“It’s important for me to have more than 18 majors when all is said and done,” the 14-time major winner told the Associated Press at the Bridgestone America’s Golf Cup, a Mexico City exhibition he had planned to play with Matt Kuchar before his procedure in September landed him back on the DL.

“It took Jack his whole career to achieve it and mine is not done yet,” said Woods, who will turn 40 in December and has not competed since Aug. 23 at the Wyndham Championship. “I believe that I have a very good record for 20 years on the tour. The main thing is to get fit and to reach my 40s with good health to be as successful as Vijay [Singh], who won most of his tournaments at that age.

“It’s something that I hope I will be able to do,” Woods added. “I want to play at an elite level with the new kids for a long, long time.’’

And just when almost everyone had stopped handicapping Woods’ odds of ever capturing another major title, let alone his chances of surpassing Nicklaus.

Woods appeared to recapture a semblance of his championship form at the Wyndham, where he recorded his strongest finish --T10 -- since he won five PGA Tour events in 2013. That was following nearly two lost seasons during which he displayed a hideous case of the chipping yips after undergoing his first microdiscectomy in March 2014 that forced him to skip the Masters for the first time in his professional career.

Recognizing that he returned to competitive golf too soon after the procedure, Woods said on Tuesday he would learn from the experiences of others with bad backs, like tour pro Graham DeLaet, and not make that mistake again.

“I’ll start my rehab soon,” he said. “It’s a long and tedious rehab. Last time, it took me a very long time to come back. Some players on tour they’ve had it done and and it’s taken for them to be pain-free over a year.”

One thing Woods has going for him is that when he does get back to the circuit — which he allowed won’t be any time soon — he’ll do so without overhauling his swing for the umpteenth time.

“This year I tried to play after the back surgery and it wasn’t fun because all of the pain. Also after my last surgery, I was changing my swing and to be able to do that successfully you have to practice a lot, and I could not practice because I was doing the rehab,” said Woods. “It was a very complicated situation because of that.’’

To reclaim his “explosiveness,” Woods has to be able to withstand long hours or practice.

And that, said Tiger, will take “months and months of a lot of hard work.”