This week’s Masters is set to see Tiger Woods, a five-time champion, return to his first official golf tournament just 14 months after a car accident left him with life-threatening injuries.

In 2021, Woods was involved in a car crash in Los Angeles where his car flipped and one of his legs so badly injured that amputation was considered. However, he is set to return to golf, potentially with screws and rods still holding his leg together. It is set to be his first official tournament since the 2020 Masters. 

Woods played in an exhibition tournament with his son in December 2021, aided by a buggy to get around the course. He still earned $8 million from that tournament, with crowds flocking to see him play for the first time since the accident. 

While walking is still a struggle for him, he remains confident that he can win, saying “I don’t show up to an event unless I think I can win it.”

Woods is no stranger to playing through injury, winning the 2008 US Open with a double stress fracture in his leg and winning the 2019 Masters not long after extensive back surgery. He has been very clear that he has no intention to make up numbers and is looking to win the tournament and claim his sixth masters win, the first of those coming all the way back in 1997. 

“I feel like if I can still compete at the highest level I am going to, but if I feel like I can’t, you won’t see me out here,” Woods said.

A victory would make him the oldest ever winner of the tournament at 46-years-old, and leave him two victories short of the all-time record for major titles. The tournament starts on Thursday April 7 at the Augusta National Golf Course in Georgia.