Golfing star Tiger Woods once left security at The Open utterly embarrassed after they denied him entry. The four-time winner was in the prime of his career when he got into an awkward exchange with staff.
Woods has since faced more challenging times and is not in contention to win this year, having missed the cut on Friday. He ended day two with a six-over-par round, finishing on 14-over-par, eight shots above the cut line.
The Open has been less than generous to Woods in recent years, with him being cut from four of his last five appearances at the major since 2015, although he did manage to tie for sixth place in 2018. This is a stark contrast to the 48-year-old’s golden years. Between 1998 and 2006, Woods clinched The Open four times and only missed out on the top 10 twice.
Therefore, Woods would have been surprised to face questions from security at The Open during his peak. Akin to Roger Federer posing for selfies with security staff after initially being refused entry into Wimbledon in 2022, the golf legend displayed the same assured confidence and resolved the issue with a cheeky response when he faced a similar incident.
PGA golfer Michael Kim recounted the incident on X earlier this week, just days before The Open at Royal Troon began. “At the Open Championship, players get a clip as credentials to get you into the locker room and everywhere else,” Kim wrote.
Mid 2000s, Tiger forgot his clip one day, and he was walking into the locker room when the security person stopped him asking for his credentials. Tiger looks around, sees a massive billboard with his name and face on it, points to it, says, ‘That’s my credentials’ and walked into the locker room.”
As a 15-time major winner, Woods is one of the sport’s all-time greats but has recently been forced to quash talk of retirement. Despite his disappointing second round at the Royal Troon, Woods has vowed to play at The Open next year and is seemingly positive about the future.
It wasn’t very good,” Woods admitted. “I made a double there at two and I was just fighting it all day. I never really hit it close enough to hit birdies and I made a lot of bogeys.
“I would have liked to have played more but I just wanted to make sure I was able to play the major championships. I’ve got a lot of time off to get better physically, which has been the case all year.
I’ve gotten better even though my results haven’t shown it, but physically I’ve gotten better, which is great. I need to keep progressing like that and eventually start playing more competitively and start getting into the competitive flow again.”
“I’ve always loved playing major championships,” he added. “I just wish I was more physically sharp coming into the majors. Obviously it tests you mentally, physically, emotionally, and I just wasn’t as sharp as I needed to be. I was hoping that I would find it somehow, just never did. Consequently, my results and scores were pretty high.
