Michelle Wie and Tiger Woods are both tuning up for their first majors of the season but the LPGA and PGA superstars have more in common than preparations for the ANA Inspiration, which starts on Thursday, and next week’s Masters.
Michelle Wie, Tiger Woods compare injuries ahead of Masters, ANA Inspiration
Both American superstars are preparing for the first two majors of the season and hoping to maintain their relatively good health.
Photo by Donald Miralle/Getty Images
Sure, each has been around for what seems forever and both are the needle-movers on their respective tours. These days, though, it’s injuries that bind the two Stanford alums, and Wie on Tuesday ticked off the various body parts that are in various states of repair and disrepair and that she and Woods discuss when their paths cross in Jupiter, Florida.
“Every time we see each other we list off all the things: how’s your ankle, how’s your back, how’s your everything?” Wie, 28 but sounding a bit like your grandmother, told reporters from Mission Hills Country Club. “And then it’s a 20-minute conversation, and then we can move on from there.”
Woods, of course, is in the midst of an impressive comeback from a fourth back surgery last April, and is set to tee it up at Augusta for the first time since 2015. That, following five events in 2018 that include a T2 at the Valspar Championship, which he played for the first time ever earlier this month, and a T5 in his final tuneup for the Masters at Bay Hill.
Wie is also tearing it up on tour this year after two extremely down years in 2015 and 2016. In 2015, she had as many missed cuts and withdrawals (13) as she did complete events. Earlier this month, however, she prevailed at the Women’s World Championship for her first W since the 2014 U.S. Open.
Those ailments, though.
Wie’s woes, like Tiger’s (knees, leg, neck, ankle, Achilles tendon, glutes, etc.), are almost too numerous to recount. Check out the therapeutic tape she wraps around her legs and you get an idea of the stress and strain her body has undergone since before her first major win at the 2014 U.S. Women’s Open.
”It’s kind of the knee, but it’s not that bad at all, it’s just slightly a nagging issue,” Wie said ahead of her victory at Pinehurst. “I just feel like I’m getting old and not 13 anymore.”
If it’s not her knee, it’s an injury to an index finger, or neck pain that forced her to withdraw from the 2017 U.S. Women’s Open after her first and only shot of the second round.
And if it’s not an external wound, strep throat, and other illnesses have sent Wie to the DL — that emergency appendectomy that sidelined her for six weeks in 2017, for example.
This season, osteoarthritis has plagued Wie, who receives regular collagen injections to combat what she described on Tuesday as “like bone on bone for knees.”
Let’s just say the five-time tour winner is not amused by her current, nagging ailment.
“It just sucks that it’s on both wrists,” said Wie, who noted that “maintenance injections” every three or four months have been helpful.
The need to limit practice sessions is another issue that Wie and Woods share, but the former draws a great deal of encouragement from the latter.
“It’s so inspiring,” Wie said. “Just seeing what he’s gone through with his injuries, and then just seeing what his clubhead speed is right now and everything, seeing how he’s hitting the ball and how he was coming back, it’s truly inspiring and motivating. It’s really cool to watch.”
Yet another way in which Wiesy and the Big Cat are similar is their apparent need to temper expectations. While Woods no longer says he’s in it to win it, as he did for so many years, Wie just wants to stay healthy.
”My goal is to play the whole year and not to take an extended break during the season. That would be my whole goal,” Wie said from the Founders Cup two weeks ago. “Keep my organs in my body. That would be great.”
Lexi Thompson, probably hopes as well that her first-round playing partner does not begin spewing kidneys and the like all over the Dinah Shore Tournament Course, a venue on which Wie has had great success.
The two American powerhouses — thanks to the golf goddesses and tourney organizers — will start on the 10th tee at 4:30 p.m. ET on Thursday.
