After learning that Tiger Woods was alive and recovering after his car crash in Southern California this weekend — especially after seeing the damage done to the car that he was driving — Phil Mickelson couldn’t help but be thankful.
“We all are hoping and praying for a full and speedy recovery,” Mickelson said Thursday ahead of his third appearance on the PGA Tour Champions this week. “We are also thankful because that looked awful. We are thankful he’s still with us.”
Woods was involved in a single-car rollover crash on Tuesday morning just south of Los Angeles, and was taken to a local hospital for a lengthy surgery for multiple leg injuries. The incident was deemed an accident, and Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva confirmed Wednesday that there was “no evidence of impairment whatsoever.”
Woods’ team announced Tuesday night that he was awake and responsive after the surgery, where doctors had to insert rods, pins and screws to stabilize his leg.
Mickelson, Rory McIlroy happy for Tiger’s kids
Rory McIlroy, like Mickelson, was asked on Wednesday about the possibility of Woods being able to make a return to the PGA Tour — something surgeons told Yahoo Sports would be “very challenging.”
McIlroy, however, was quick to put things into perspective.
“He’s not Superman,” he said Wednesday, via Golfweek.
“He’s a human being at the end of the day. And he’s already been through so much. At this stage, I think everyone should just be grateful that he’s here, that he’s alive, that his kids haven’t lost their dad. That’s the most important thing. Golf is so far from the equation right now, it’s not even on the map at this point.”
Mickelson — speaking from the Cologuard Classic in Tucson, Arizona, where he’ll attempt to win his third-straight event in just three tries on the PGA Tour’s 50-and-over circuit — said that he and others on the PGA Tour Champions are right with McIlroy.
At this point, golf simply doesn’t matter.
“All the guys here understand and appreciate what he has meant to the game of golf and for us and the PGA Tour,” Mickelson said. “We all are very appreciative and supportive of what he’s done for us, but right that’s so far from our minds.
“I thought Rory McIlroy really said it well when he said that we’re just lucky and appreciative that his kids didn’t lose their father.”
