Legendary golfer Tiger Woods discussed his future in his first interview since a devastating car accident in Los Angeles this past February.
Woods described the immediate aftermath of the accident in an interview with Golf Digest, as well as the long rehabilitation process continues to endure.
Woods stressed that he was itching to get back to the game despite his injuries. One of the first things he did in his hospital bed was ask for a golf club to mess around with.
Still, the golfer added while speaking to the magazine that while he was “doing great,” he still had a ways to go to get back to his former level.
On February 23, Woods was speeding in his Genesis SUV around a sharp turn when he lost control of the vehicle. This resulted in a rollover crash, and Woods broke his right tibia and fibula, along with reported smaller breaks in his left leg and compound fractures.
At one point, doctors at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center reportedly feared that they might have to amputate his right leg. This was not the case, though, and Woods was eventually discharged from the hospital into rehab.
Woods said that his recovery was an uphill battle and that he wanted to begin with playing single tours—although, he admitted that he’ll probably never play golf full-time again.
“I think something that is realistic is playing the tour one day—never full time, ever again—but pick and choose,” Woods told Golf Digest. “You practice around that, and you gear yourself up for that. I think that’s how I’m going to have to play it from now on. It’s an unfortunate reality, but it’s my reality. And I understand it, and I accept it.”
Woods’ rehabilitation process included a three-month stint in a homebound hospital bed. This eventually progressed to a wheelchair, and then a set of crutches.
“Adding that part into my day-to-day life was so rewarding because I’d been stuck in a house. Granted, it’s a pretty nice house I’ve built for myself, but I hadn’t been able to do the one thing I love to do: I love to go outside and just be outside,” Woods told Golf Digest. “Sometimes I just crutch and lay on the grass for an hour because I want to be outside. Missing the contact of a golf ball hit properly is one of the better feelings.”
The progress appears to be coming along well, as Woods recently tweeted a video that showed him swinging an iron.
The famed golfer told the magazine that his father’s regiment as a former military man helped Woods cope with the physical and emotional trauma that resulted from the crash. This, Woods said, helped him through some of his darkest days.
“Any [special forces] operator can attest to this—you don’t know how long a firefight is gonna take. It could last five seconds or five hours and some could go on for days at a time,” Woods said in his interview. “With that in mind, you don’t know when the end is so that’s the hard part. How do you get through that?”
“I just shortened up the windows of, oh, this is gonna be nine months of hell, to it’s just two or three hours,” he added.
Newsweek has reached out to Tiger Woods for comment.
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