The Hero World Challenge has often been the comeback zone for Tiger Woods in the past. This time around it was not about playing but just a press conference - his first in 10 months since his car accident in February.

He admitted he was grateful to have come out of the crash without losing his right leg. He also fielded questions on the accident, while keeping all personal questions like ‘his memory’ of the crash at bay; talked about playing and spending time with his kids and finally admitting he was a long way off from deciding whether he could compete with the best and almost ruled out playing full time on the Tour.

He revealed that an amputation (of the right leg) was a possibility back in February but said, “I'm lucky to be alive and still have the limb. Those are two crucial things.  I'm very grateful that someone upstairs was taking care of me, that I'm able to not only be here but also to walk without a prosthesis.”

Seated alongside Woods was his sponsor and now close friend, Pawan Munjal, Managing Director and CEO of Hero Moto Corp, the backers of the Hero World Challenge, which includes World No. 2 Collin Morikawa, 4-time Major winners, Rory McIlroy and Brooks Koepka and three-time Major champion Jordan Spieth,

Munjal spelt out his reasons for the connect he had with Woods, saying, “I have admired his resilience and desire to come back, fight back. I've been interacting with Tiger on messages, talking to him off and on.  To come back from this kind of an injury, an accident is something which is not impossible, but very, very difficult and very tough.

“My association or Hero's association with Tiger is not around his current game or his current form.  It is because of what he's done in the past for the game, through the Foundation or sports in general.  That's why the connect.”

Woods ruled out regular tournament play on the Tour, saying, “I don't foresee this leg ever being what it used to be, hence I'll never have the back what it used to be, and clock's ticking.  I'm getting older, I'm not getting any younger.  All that combined means that a full schedule and a full practice schedule and the recovery that it would take to do that, no, I don't have any desire to do that.”

Yet, he added, “But to ramp up for a few events a year as I alluded to yesterday as Mr. Hogan did, he did a pretty good job of it, and there's no reason that I can't do that and feel ready.  I think if you practice correctly and you do it correctly, that I've come off surgeries before, I've come off long layoffs and I've won or come close to winning before.  So I know the recipe for it, I've just got to get to a point where I feel comfortable enough where I can do that again.”

“I can show up here and I can host an event, I can play a par‑3 course, I can hit a few shots, I can chip and putt, but we're talking about going out there and playing against the world's best on the most difficult golf courses under the most difficult conditions.  I'm so far from that.

Now, I have a long way to go to get to that point.”

Apart from getting healthy and strengthen his right leg, his main focus now is his kids. He said, “Well, they have known me more for being injured than healthy. Most of their lives I was going through my back operations.  I was the guy sitting in the chair right in front of the TV playing (e-sport) ‘Call of Duty’ while they're at school.”

“It was a surprise to them when they realized I could play the game.  That's why the (2019) Masters was such an important family moment for all of us, for my mom, Sam and Charlie, all of my friends ‑‑ that's what they've seen, that's what they've grown up with.  They don't remember any of these other times because they weren't alive yet or they were too young to remember.”

But for now, he is ready to host 20 of the world’s best golfers for the Hero World Challenge 2021, which returns to action after losing a year to the pandemic.

Woods also revealed, "Friends and family kept me insulated from what was being (about the accident). I had access to a TV in the hospital, but I was just watching sports. I refused to turn on the local channels. I didn't want to go down that road ... My mind wasn't ready."

His mind may not be ready for a lot of things, but has been made up on a lot of other things and the goals have been aligned more towards the people close to him.

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