With The Open Championship starting next week, many are wondering if this is the last go-around for Tiger Woods.
Woods has been struggling the last few years at majors and it seems unlikely that he’ll be able to regain his former glory. Some people in the game have started to wonder if the legend should call it a career.
One of those people is Colin Montgomerie. Montgomerie, who has never won a major and finished second to Woods in 2005 when The Open Championship was played at St. Andrews, says it’s time for Tiger to move on.
“I hope people remember Tiger as Tiger was, the passion and the charismatic aura around him,” Montgomerie told the Times. “There is none of that now. At Pinehurst, he did not seem to enjoy a single shot and you think, ‘What the hell is he doing?’ He’s coming to Troon and he won’t enjoy it there either.”
Most recently, Woods carded a 2nd-round 73 and missed the cut at the 2024 U.S. Open. He has now missed the cut four times in his past five starts in the U.S. Open.
This is not the first time Montgomerie has said Woods should retire, also saying so after Woods missed the cut at St. Andrews back in 2022.
“That was the time,” Montgomerie told the Times in 2022. “Stand on that bridge, start waving, and everyone goes, ‘So, is that it?’ Yeah, it is. It would have been a glorious way to go. The stands were full, the world’s TV cameras—from all continents—were on him, he’s walking up there on his own, tears were in his eyes obviously… you can’t beat that walk.”
Despite the issues and lack of recent success, Tiger says he’s not ready to call it a career. He should make that call on his own and when he feels like he is ready to go. Is it painful to watch him struggle? Yes, but that’s his choice.
The day he does decide to hang it up, it will be a sad one for the golf world and the sports world as well. He may not win many golf tournaments anymore, but Woods is still a huge draw and his impact changed the golf world forever.
