What Tiger Woods would do while in pain that former coach Chris Como found ‘incredible’

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Tiger Woods’ victory at the 2019 Masters may have been the greatest of his career given the punishment his body had been through for well over a decade beforehand.

Tiger Woods was able to win while injured during the peak of his career. Woods famously won the 2008 US Open essentially on one leg. He had to play 91 holes that week to overcome Rocco Mediate.

By 2019 however, Woods no longer seemed superhuman. His victory at the Tour Championship the previous season ended a wait of five years for a win. And he had already undergone a considerable number of surgeries.

Chris Como was Woods’ coach for much of that time. The pair began working together in 2014 before parting ways in December 2017.

What Chris Como found ‘incredible’ from his time working with Tiger Woods

Of course, injury plagued that spell in Woods’ career. He did not play in a single major in either 2016 and 2017. But in some ways, that gave the 49-year-old the opportunity to impress Como even more than he would have done playing regularly on the PGA Tour.

Speaking on the On The Mark Podcast, Como explained that he was blown away by how hard Woods worked when it would have been easy to throw in the towel.

“Even in a window where he was hurt, he would just do everything he could to fight through it. It is one of the more remarkable things I have ever seen, just from a human level,” he said.

“I know the type of pain that he was in and how injured he was, and how difficult the back situation was for him. And he just kept fighting when 99.9 percent of all the people in the world would probably be like, ‘look, I’m good. I’ve won 14 majors. I’ve made X amount of dollars. I’m good’. And he just kept at it.

“To win The Masters in 2019, that was one of the most special moments in sports I think. It was remarkable to be around him and just that no quit mindset. His work ethic was incredible. He fought through a lot of pain and kept at it.”

What Tiger Woods would do in practice which Chris Como found really interesting

It would be fascinating to see how Woods practices and prepares. Ultimately, there is an argument to be made that he is the most talented player the game has ever seen.

He put incredible strain on his body. But if he had been a little luckier with injury, then it looks highly likely that he would have overtaken Jack Nicklaus‘ record of 18 major wins.

And it seems that Woods never lost his desire to constantly improve. Como explained how Woods would get himself ready for events.

“One of the things I thought was really interesting was the way he would practice, especially away from a tournament. He would take the whole afternoon and just do short game. Or take a whole afternoon and just putt,” he added.

“A lot of people subscribe to, ‘I’m going to do 30 minutes chipping, 30 minutes putting, 30 hitting balls’, whatever it is. And they break up an X amount of hours window with all the different facets of the game. He would do that when it came to tournament prep. But if he had a window off. He would spend a huge chunk on one part of the game. And it was almost like he was experimenting and learning, and having that big window gave him that ability to go deep into a subject.”

As things stand, there is a huge question mark hanging over whether Woods will play again.

But, judging by Como’s comments, if there is anyone who is going to give themselves every possible chance to return, it is surely Woods.