TROON, Scotland — Tiger Woods will let his game or, rather, his belief in his game dictate when he decides to hang up the golf clubs.
Regarding his future plans, Woods was quite clear that he still feels he has what it takes to compete at major championships.
“I’ll play as long as I can play and I feel like I can still win the event,” Woods said.
Asked if his belief that winning is possible has wavered over the past two years since his leg injury, Woods was quite succinct with his answer.
“No,” he said.
The 15-time major champ is looking to win his fourth Open Championship this week as the world’s best gather at Royal Troon for the season’s final major.
There is a belief in some golf circles that the game’s oldest championship is the most likely place for Woods to succeed if there to be one more comeback for the ages inside the great champion — and Tiger seems to agree.
“I think the older you get, the less you can carry the golf ball. But over here, you can run the golf ball 100 yards if you get the right wind and the right trajectory,” Woods said. “It negates somewhat of the high launch conditions that most of the times you see on the tour that nowadays that populate the world.
“Here it’s a little bit different. You can play on the ground. You can burn it on the ground with a 1-iron, 2-iron, 3-wood, whatever, even drivers, and just flight it and get a bunch of run. I think that’s one of the reasons why you see older champions up there on the board because they’re not forced to have to carry the ball 320 yards any more.”
Woods tees off Thursday at 2:37 p.m. local time (9:37 a.m. ET) with Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele.