We won’t see Tiger Woods next week in San Diego at Torrey Pines for the 121st U.S. Open, but it wasn’t for a lack of effort.
The 15-time major champion is still recovering from a February car crash that required emergency surgery, meaning his chances of competing at the site of his epic 2008 U.S. Open victory were slim to none.
But what about the broadcast?
On an NBC Sports media conference call featuring Dan Hicks, Paul Azinger, Jim “Bones” Mackay and Tommy Roy ahead of next week’s major championship, the third of the men’s season, it was asked whether or not anybody had reached out to Woods or his team to see if he would be interested in being a part of the coverage.
“Yeah, in fact, that’s exactly the line that I was thinking and we were all thinking is how good that would be, who better, if he couldn’t be there to play it, to voice it and have him a part of the show. But we were rebuffed,” explained Hicks. “He didn’t want to do it, and I totally understand his situation. There is a lot going on in his world right now and there’s also a part of Tiger that doesn’t want to become this, I don’t want to, for lack of a better word, a sideshow at an event where we should be concentrating on what’s happening.”
Hicks continued: “Also, I really believe that if you said yes to something, it would just be a non-stop parade of asks, and he would have to just, you know, start telling everybody no. So, yeah, it would have been fantastic to have Tiger a part of it in that sense, but I understand that what’s going on in his world that he wanted to kind of keep it low key and stay out of the limelight for this one and just hopefully he’ll enjoy it at home watching it on TV and be inspired when we talk about what he did 13 years ago and that’s the best we can hope for.”
