'Just Basically Freezing Myself To Death' Tiger Woods Describes How He Will Recover From Masters First Round

Tiger Woods shot an opening round 71 at the 2022 Masters tournament in what was a topsy turvy affair. Coming back from recovery after his car accident in 2021, Woods has spent the entire week acknowledging not only how he can still compete, but also how much longer it takes to even think about doing so. This latter point continued after the solid round on Thursday as he got asked what he would have to do to get ready for tomorrow's round. 

"A lot. A lot. Lots of treatments. Lots of ice. Lots of ice baths. Just basically freezing myself to death. That's just part of the deal. And getting all the swelling out as best as we possibly can and getting it mobile and warmed up, activated and explosive for the next day. Those are two totally different ends of the spectrum.

"Most sports, if you're not feeling very good, you got a teammate to pass it off to, and they can kind of shoulder the load. Or in football, one day a week. Here we've got four straight days, and there's no one that's going to shoulder the load besides me. I've got to figure out a way to do it.

"My team's been incredible at getting me into this position so that I can compete. I'll take it from there. I know how to play. I've just got to get out there where I can play."

Woods was also asked how he felt compared to how he expected to feel. He replied; "I am as sore as I expected to feel, but it was amazing to have -- like I was telling the team all week, come game time, it will be a different deal. My adrenaline will kick in. I'll get into my own little world, and I'll get after it. It's about the training that we've done to have the stamina to go. I'm going to be sore, yes. That's just the way it is. But the training cycles that we've had to make sure that I have the stamina to keep going and this is only one round. We've got three more to go. There's a long way to go and a lot of shots to be played."

There were a couple of moments during the ground where he appeared to begrimacing, especially after his pulled tee shot on the 9th. However, Woods managed to get to the clubhouse just three shots behind the early leaders. He tees off in Round 2 at 1.41pm EDT alongside Louis Oosthuizen and Joaquin Niemann.