Alan Shipnuck on Whether Tiger Woods Ever Returns to Competitive Golf

Asked the what's-more-likely question of whether we'll see Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson play a tournament again, Alan Shipnuck started with Phil on a technicality and then reversed himself.

On paper, Phil's body is unbroken while Tiger's is smashed up in countless places. But access changes everything. Mickelson's allegiance to LIV Golf means he'd have to serve a suspension of at least a year and pay a mega fine to play a PGA Tour or senior tour event, and Shipnuck believes he's disinclined to do either. If LIV folds next year, which Shipnuck thinks is increasingly likely, Phil becomes a man without a country with nowhere to play. Tiger, by contrast, is welcome wherever he wants, and could ride a cart on the senior tour.

So despite the health challenges, Shipnuck lands on Tiger as more likely to soldier through. It's simply who he is, he said, all Woods has done since he was in diapers, and he can't turn it off even after years of struggling to make cuts. The X factor is his son Charlie, now an undergraduate who'll get sponsor invites because his last name is Woods. The way LeBron wanted to play alongside his son, Shipnuck could see Tiger pushing to share a real field with Charlie, not just their rinky-dink father-son event. He also floated the US Senior Open as a romantic target to pair with Tiger's US Junior, US Amateur, and US Open titles, and noted post-rehab photos showed a slimmer, healthier Woods, lighter on his feet after months away from a club.

Nobody expects Tiger to win the Masters again, Shipnuck said, but if he could get between the ropes, hear the crowd, and take a victory lap just by being out there, nobody would begrudge him that. He's earned it. The last chapter for both Tiger and Phil, Shipnuck concluded, is unwritten.