Though Tiger Woods will hit the course again next week for the British Open, Colin Montgomerie thinks he needs to simply call it a career.
After seeing Woods’ struggles in recent years, both on the course and off, the European Ryder Cup legend doesn’t think Woods should keep trying to compete even at the limited capacity that he’s been doing. His game, Montgomerie told the Times of London on Saturday, simply is nothing like what it once was.
“Aren’t we there? I’d have thought we were past there,” Montgomerie said when asked if Woods should stop playing competitively. “There is a time for all sportsmen to say goodbye, but it’s very difficult to tell Tiger it’s time to go. Obviously, he still feels he can win. We are more realistic … These guys only know Tiger Woods missing the cut and he’s better than that, the best we’ve ever seen.”
Based on Woods’ most recent stretch of golf, it’s easy to see why Montgomerie feels the way he does.
Woods missed the cut at the U.S. Open last month at Pinehurst No. 2 in North Carolina, which marked the sixth major championship that he’s either missed the cut at or withdrawn from in his last nine starts. He just barely made the cut at the Masters in April, where he finished in 60th, and he withdrew from the Genesis Invitational due to an illness in what was his only other start in 2024. In fact, Woods has only finished five of his last 12 starts anywhere.
The 48-year-old has been hinting at the end of his career for quite some time now, both due largely to the numerous injuries he’s battled throughout his career and the car crash that nearly cost him his leg in 2021. He’s said that he hopes to play in the four major championships each season, along with a few other select events, in a much more manageable schedule.
How long that continues, though, remains to be seen. After missing the cut at Pinehurst, Woods said that “may or may not” have been his final U.S. Open.
Woods, who is in the field next week at the British Open at Royal Troon, hasn’t played since.
“I hope people remember Tiger as Tiger was, the passion and the charismatic aura around him. There is none of that now,” Montgomerie said. “At Pinehurst [for the U.S. Open] he did not seem to enjoy a single shot and you think, ‘What the hell is he doing?’ He’s coming to Troon and he won’t enjoy it there either.”
Montgomerie, 61, never won on the PGA Tour but he claimed 31 wins on the DP World Tour throughout his career. He’s won three major championships on the PGA Tour Champions circuit, too, and he’s played on eight different European Ryder Cup teams. He’s never lost a singles match in the event, either, and he’s the only player in history to hole the winning putt twice.
Woods beat Montgomerie at the British Open at St. Andrews in 2005 by five shots. That was near the end of Montgomerie’s peak, he admitted, which was even clearer after he blew a shot at the U.S. Open the following year. Montgomerie made a double bogey at the last when a par would have won, and a bogey would have forced a playoff.
“I don’t think I ever recovered from 2006,” Montgomerie said. “I never contended at the majors again. I was getting towards the end of my span and had a feeling that was it, that was the best chance I was going to have.
“Knowing the standard of golf being played, knowing Tiger was taking two a year, there wasn’t much left.”
Montgomerie is set to compete in the Senior British Open, which will kick off on July 25 from Carnoustie Golf Links in Scotland.
