Tiger Woods has undergone a microdiscectomy to alleviate lower back nerve pain and will not compete in next week’s Farmers Insurance Open or next month’s Genesis Invitational.
Through Woods’ Twitter account, it was announced that “he recently underwent a microdiscectomy procedure to remove a fragment of a pressurized disc that pinched his nerves after he suffered discomfort from the PNC Championship.”
Woods is no stranger to procedure. He did it three times – once in the spring of 2014 and twice in the fall of 2015. He finally had a more serious operation called spinal fusion in April 2017 that prevented him from swinging a golf club. for six months.
He returned from that operation in 2018 and went on to win the Tour Championship that year, followed by the Masters in 2019 and the Zozo Championship later that year.
Woods, 45, fought most of 2020 and sometimes complained of back stiffness and pain.
After tying for ninth place at the Farmers Insurance Open a year ago, he was never close to fighting in the eight tournaments he played the rest of the year. He finished 38th at the Masters in November.
The PNC Championship is the 36-hole event he played last month with his 11-year-old son Charlie.
“I look forward to starting training and returning to the Tour,” Woods said in a statement, who also acknowledged that he will not be competing in any of the two California tournaments he was expected to play.
When Woods had his first return procedure on March 31, 2014, he returned to the competition in June that year, although many believed it was too early. He proceeded again in September 2015 and then six weeks later.