Tiger's leg offers glimpse of his trauma

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Tiger Woods follows his son, Charlie, at U.S. Junior Am at Oakland Hills (Logan Whitton/USGA)

For a man with a boat called “Privacy,” Tiger Woods isn’t the best at lowering the curtain on … well, anything really. So it was a little surprising to anyone who saw him playing the role of parent this week at Oakland Hills to get of glimpse of his scarred right leg that’s typically hidden underneath trousers or a compression sock.

Woods has played in just 11 worldwide events since the serious car crash in 2021 resulted in significant injuries to his lower right leg, ankle and foot. He’s spoken about how difficult his injuries have been to recover from but never really shown the world what he’s dealing with beyond limps and grimaces.

Photos posted on social media Monday — taken while Woods was watching his son, Charlie, compete at the U.S. Junior Amateur at Oakland Hills Country Club — revealed the scarring from what likely has been multiple surgeries to his right leg. The 15-time major champion typically wears a long compression sock when he’s wearing in shorts.

Woods is seen Monday without his usual long compression sock on his injured right leg (Raj Mehta/Getty Images)

Woods was involved in a single-car rollover accident outside of Los Angeles on Feb. 23, 2021. According to Dr. Anish Mahajan, chief medical officer at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Woods suffered comminuted open fractures — which is when a bone breaks into multiple pieces and pierces the skin — to the upper and lower sections of his right leg, as well as significant trauma to his right ankle.

Doctors inserted a rod, screws and pins to stabilize Woods’ leg, Mahajan said in a statement.

Woods has had more surgeries since that time. After making the cut but withdrawing after the third round of the 2022 PGA Championship, Woods likely had another surgery to deal with a protruding pin that he had described to fellow tour player Jason Day. He returned to play in the 150th Open at St Andrews, where he missed the cut.

Last year, Woods had surgery on his right ankle following the Masters and did not play again until the Hero World Challenge in December, where he completed 72 holes and finished 18th out of 20 players.

This year, Woods has played five times: withdrawing during the second round of the Genesis Invitational at Riviera with the flu; finishing 60th at the Masters; and then missing the cut at the remaining three majors, including last week’s Open at Royal Troon.

After the Open, Woods expressed optimism that he would continue to get better and expressed regret at not being able to play more.

“I’ve gotten better, even though my results really haven’t shown it, but physically I’ve gotten better, which is great,” he said. “I just need to keep progressing like that and then eventually start playing more competitively and start getting into kind of the competitive flow again.”

Woods was in Michigan to watch his son at Oakland Hills in the stroke-play portion of the U.S. Junior Am, a tournament Tiger won a record three times before winning three more U.S. Amateurs.