Tiger Woods committed to the 2018 Open Championship at Carnoustie this week. This was not a surprise, but now Woods is committed to both the U.S. Open and Open Championship after finishing T32 at the Masters earlier in the year.
Woods has played in two different Opens at Canoustie. In 1999 -- you know it as the Jean Van de Velde meltdown -- Woods shot 10-over 294 and finished four strokes out of a playoff. In 2007 when Padraig Harrington beat Sergio Garcia in a playoff, Woods finished 2 under and T12 on the board.
Big Cat has not played an Open since 2015 and has not made the cut at one since 2014.
"I didn't know what to expect this year," said Woods on Tuesday about his injury-riddled body. "I didn't know if I would even be able to play the Tour consistently or I'd be relegated to just hanging on the sidelines and watching from TV or maybe just playing one tournament a quarter or something like that. I had no idea what to expect."
Woods will play his eighth event of the year this week at TPC Sawgrass in front of those two Opens this summer.
"This is all new to me," he added. "This is all exciting because I just didn't know what to expect. To sit here, I know that it's been about a year. But to sit here 12 months ago and you would have said, 'yeah, you're going to be playing The Players Championship, and you're going to have had a chance to win a couple of events this year.' I would have said, 'you've got to be kidding me, I can barely walk.'
"I wouldn't say it's gravy, but it's unbelievable, and I'm just so thankful to be able to have this opportunity again because I didn't know if I would ever have had. Trust me, I'm fully aware of how special this is for me."
Now that special season will extend into the summer and probably beyond. The 2018 Open Championship is set to take place from July 19-22 at Carnoustie.
