Masters 2024: Why Thursday's weather is bad news for Tiger Woods

AUGUSTA, Ga. — The routine for most professional golfers is planned out minute-by-minute. A weather delay can throw that entire process off.

When it comes to Tiger Woods, that routine is already nearly twice as long as any other competitor—due to everything his body has gone through and the preparation he must put in to get ready to play. When the news about the weather delay on Thursday at the 2024 Masters arrived, we’re confident he was one of the most disappointed folks in Augusta.

Though the weather wasn’t as bad as originally feared, it still means starting times were pushed back by two and a half hours—meaning that Woods’ first round won’t start until 3:54 p.m., alongside Max Homa and Jason Day.

With sunset in Augusta at 7:56 p.m., Woods' three-ball would need to play in four hours to be able to complete the round—highly unlikely knowing that pace of play tends to push five hours in big events. That means a quick turnaround from Thursday night into Friday morning. And for Woods, that means he'll have a very early wake-up time to prepare for a likely 7 a.m. resumption of play. Then his second-round tee time is set for 10:18 a.m., so there will be more than 18 holes of golf in store for Day 2.

In last year's Masters, Woods successfully made the cut, but then had to withdraw because of his painful ankle and foot. The following week, he had surgery to fuse his right ankle.

Woods, 48, has acknowledged that although he intended to play more early in the season, he hasn't been physically ready since withdrawing with the flu in the second round of the Genesis Invitational in mid-February. That was his only start of the season.

"Well, I wasn't ready to play," Woods said. "My body wasn't ready. My game wasn't ready. And I thought that when I was at Hero, once a month would be a really nice rhythm. Hasn't worked out that way. But now we have major championships every month from here through July. So now the once a month hopefully kicks in."

Woods is seeking to surpass Fred Couples for the record of most made-cuts (24) in Masters history.