Tiger Woods turned a slightly disappointing Masters Sunday finale into a drama for the ages when he jammed his iron into a tree root on the ninth hole and hurt his right wrist.
Tiger Woods pops his wrist bone back in, performs outpatient procedure at the Masters
Tiger Woods dispels major doubts about his game and finishes all four rounds at Augusta, but not without incident as he injures his wrist in Sunday’s final round of the Masters.
That’s not the odd part, though, for the injury-plagued Woods. After carding a 1-over 73 to finish at 5-under and in 17th place in his first competitive event since February, Tiger said he performed a minor orthopedic procedure on himself.
“A bone kinda popped out and a joint kind of went out of place, but I put it back in,” Woods told CBS about the incident that caused him to yell out in pain and shake his wounded extremity.
Interviewer Bill Macatee’s “Really?” pretty much summed up Twitter’s reaction to Tiger’s Masters version of his glutes misfiring.
Tiger says he popped a bone back into position after jarring his wrist on a root on the 9th. Even the TV boys sounded dubious. #TigerFlam
— Brian Keogh (@IrishGolfDesk) April 12, 2015 Tiger just told Macatee a bone popped out of his wrist, "but I put it back in." Macatee: "Really?" TW: "Yeah" Ladies/gents, The Bionic Man.
— Brian Murphy (@knbrmurph) April 12, 2015 How badly he banged up his wrist, and what impact it might have on his near-term future was not immediately evident, though he finished the back nine with playing partner Rory McIlroy. Woods grabbed his wrist and was clearly in pain after hitting his second shot from the pine straw on the par-4 ninth, and again following a poor tee shot on No. 10.
What to expect from Tiger last week was anyone’s guess, since he went on a self-imposed hiatus following supremely poor play to start the 2015 season. He made believers out of doubters when he fired two straight rounds in the 60s on Friday and Saturday, bookended by 73s, and entered Sunday’s final round tied for sixth.
It was hardly surprising, though, that Woods, who had not booked four consecutive rounds since his awful outing at the Hero World Challenge in December and not in an official event since the British Open in July, ran out of gas down the stretch. He had posted only 47 holes of competitive golf this year, including a career-worst 82 and a missed cut in Phoenix and a withdrawal just 11 holes into his first round at Torrey Pines.
Woods’ stamina appeared to give out on Sunday, when he failed to hit a fairway in the nine holes he played before the wrist incident. It remains to be seen whether the 39-year-old former world No. 1 suffered an additional setback after Sunday’s episode, but he told reporters he would take some time off before preparing for the U.S. Open in June.
★★★
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