Fred Couples: Tiger Woods 'ready to roll' at upcoming Masters

Tiger Woods is on the verge of completing what some would call a miraculous comeback, as he suggested Tuesday he's on track to play at the Masters tournament that gets underway at Augusta National Golf Club on Thursday morning roughly 14 months after he nearly lost his leg and career to a serious and horrific car crash. 

Fellow golf legend Fred Couples, who won his green jacket in 1992, played the second nine at Augusta National alongside Woods and Justin Thomas earlier on Wednesday, and Couples made it clear the five-time Masters champion is playing this week to do more than merely test his recovery from what could've been a life-threatening incident. 

"He looked the exact same, maybe a little better, a little sharper," Couples explained, according to Mark Schlabach of ESPN. "JT was way better, too. We flew in on Monday and laughed a lot. Today, they were pretty serious. They're ready to roll, and they're ready to go tomorrow."

Woods hasn't played in a competitive PGA tournament since the 2020 Masters that was held in November of that year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

"Tiger is Tiger," Couples added. "I said it on Monday that he's not like a lot of us where I've been injured, even at age 35, and I go play just to play. He's not going to do that. He's won so many times, and he's just not a guy to go do something mediocre. He'll compete, and he'll be ready to roll."

While Schlabach noted that Woods sported a noticeable limp during Wednesday's practice session, such information isn't preventing some bettors from backing the 46-year-old to win a tournament many thought would happen without him less than a week ago. 

Meanwhile, Hideki Matsuyama intends to defend his 2021 Masters crown even though he's dealing with neck and shoulder pain that caused him to withdraw from the second round of last weekend's Valero Texas Open.