Tiger Woods travels to Augusta

9:30 a.m. on the East Coast of the United States.

Augusta airport.

A private plane lands.

It's a 2008 Gulfstream jet, with three gold spikes drawn on the back.

The ship's registration number, N517TW.

Its owner, Tiger Woods.

Nine days before the Masters begins.

The rumor has been growing in the last hours.

Can Tiger play the first major of the golf season?

No one believed it possible, not even the American myth itself, who at 46 is recovering from a terrible fracture of his right leg that he suffered 13 months ago after a traffic accident outside Los Angeles, when he lost control of his vehicle at 140 kilometers per hour, twice what is allowed in that area.

Since then, everything has been silence and absence, or at most words of pain.

“I was very close to leaving the hospital with only one leg.

I'm lucky.

That option was on the table,” he admitted last November.

Then, the winner of 15 majors confessed that he would no longer be the imperial player that he was, physically broken after five back operations,

five knee injuries and a car accident that almost cost him his life.

“I will return to the American circuit, but never again full time.

I will pick tournaments and play.

It is an unfortunate reality, but it is my reality.

I accept it.

I no longer need to play against the best in the world to have a great life.

After my last back operation I had to climb Everest again, I had to and I did, but this time I don't have the body to do it anymore.

I can't go back up the mountain, I can't get to the top anymore."

After my last back operation I had to climb Everest again, I had to and I did, but this time I don't have the body to do it anymore.

I can't go back up the mountain, I can't get to the top anymore."

After my last back operation I had to climb Everest again, I had to and I did, but this time I don't have the body to do it anymore.

I can't go back up the mountain, I can't get to the top anymore."

It was three months in a hospital bed installed in his house, wheelchair, crutches, walking again, "stuck at home", happy, he said, to be able to lie on the grass, "to be alone, with no one talking, just listening to the song of the birds.

For someone with an extremely high tolerance for suffering, who won the 2008 US Open with a limp, recovering from that broken leg was "the most painful" part of his career.

So last December he was grateful to play with his 12-year-old son Charlie in the PNC Championship, an unofficial family tag team tournament.

More than ever, the Titan was a father advising his son.

Tiger was in those, testing himself every day, when the arrival of April, spring, the Masters, the garden in which he is happiest, seems to have awakened his predatory instinct.

This Tuesday he flew to Augusta to give himself one last chance, test his bodywork and decide whether to play or not.

At the moment, his name appears in the list of participants.

He will only be deleted if he communicates that he will not be on Thursday, April 7 at the first hole.

“I have a lot left.

I still have a lot of muscle and nerve activity to recover in my leg.

But I've had five back operations.

The leg gets stronger, but the back can say 'here I am'.

It is a difficult road.

There is a lot to look forward to, a lot of hard work to do, be patient.

When I walk into the gym and get going, I want to go, go, go.

That's how I've won so many tournaments.

But everyone reminds me: at what price?

Before the accident, he had already had 10 operations.

I've pushed to win as much as I can.

To win, he did whatever it took.

And that has come at a cost,” he recently admitted.

On March 9, Tiger was inducted into the Hall of Fame (Seve and Olazabal were inducted in 1997 and 2009, respectively).

“Without the sacrifices of mom, who took me to all those junior golf tournaments, and dad, who is not here, but who instilled in me this work ethic to fight for what I believe in, I never would have made it,” he said through tears. with his sons, Sam and Charlie.

A fight that he has not considered closed.

Much less when he feels Augusta's heartbeat.

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