Tiger Woods has won 80 PGA TOUR career events including 14 majors across the globe, and to just fathom the greatness the man has shown is a longtime to be surpassed by any mere mortal.
On Tuesday Golf Writers’ Association of America honored Tiger Woods with Ben Hogan Award, given to a player who has overcome a physical handicap or serious injury to remain active in golf.
Woods, a 10-time winner of the GWAA’s Player of the Year Award and former winner of the GWAA’s Charlie Bartlett Award, underwent fusion surgery in April 2017 after three previous procedures on his back that had significantly limited his playing career.
And, Tiger has done just that, after winning his last tournament in 2013 at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational with a seven-strokes margin over duo of American Keegan Bradley and the Swedish Henrik Stenson, he hit a slump with a lot of injuries and even keeping out of the professional tour for
close to over a year. When everyone had written Tiger off people started looking for new heroes in the form of Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas, clearly the ones who missed the spot when Tiger was around.
RELATED: Tiger commits to play at Farmers Insurance Open
In 2018, Woods played 18 PGA TOUR events, picking up his 80th career victory at the TOUR Championship. The win ended a winless streak of more than five years. Woods also finished second twice and had seven top-10 finishes in a season in which he was selected to play on the U.S. Ryder Cup team. He started the year ranked 1,199th and finished the season at No. 13.
RELATED: Rickie joins team TaylorMade
“I’m grateful to receive an award named after Mr. Hogan and to join a group of truly inspirational individuals,” Woods said.
“I feel very fortunate that I was able to return to a normal life with my kids, and I understand what a privilege it is to play competitive golf again. I would like to thank the fans for their unwavering support and the GWAA for this honor.”