Notah Begay, golf analyst and BFF of Tiger Woods, thinks chances are “50-50” the 14-time major winner will compete in the 2015 Masters, which will begin April 9 at Augusta National.
Woods has not competed on the PGA Tour since February, when he withdrew from the Farmers Insurance Open in San Diego. Days later, he announced he was taking a leave of absence because, he said, “I need a lot of work on my game and to spend time with people that are important to me. When I think I’m ready, I’ll be back.”
Begay spent time with Woods recently, and told 120sports.com his former teammate at Stanford is improving, but may not be ready for the year’s first major.
“As far as Augusta is concerned, I don’t really know,” Begay said. “It’s literally a 50-50 chance right now from what I can tell. But I think that’s far better odds than what it was, say, three weeks ago. Three weeks ago, I would have said it was 1 in 10 chance of playing at Augusta.”
Begay was among those who encouraged Woods to take a break from the Tour after he suffered inflated scores and a sore back.
“My suggestion to him was to take as much time as he needed to just figure out this issue with his short game and also to work on or clean up a couple of things that might be a little loose with his golf swing,” Begay told 120sports.com. “Any transition, any change you’re making mechanically takes a little time to settle. I think things are really settling. We’ve had some good discussions over the last week or so and he feels good about it. I think it was good for him to stay a step back, to reassess a variety of different things and do things on his timeline.”
Woods missed the 2014 Masters because of back surgery. Before that he finished in the top six in eight of the last nine years though he hasn’t won the championship since 2005. Begay said Woods will need to be mentally ready as much as physically ready to play Augusta National.
“I don‘t know there was any one thing in specific that you can say that a player looks at,” Begay said. “It’s simply something that a player feels when they step on the golf course. They feel like they can go out there and basically defend themselves. That’s what it’s all about. You’re going to deal with challenges every day, sometimes it’s mechanical, sometimes it’s obstacles, sometimes it comes from the gallery. You just don’t know where it comes from.”