Teammates Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning Bond Over Injuries, Golf, and Greatness
Have you wondered why Tiger Woods chose Peyton Manning to be his teammate in the The Match: Champions for Charity taking place in Florida later this month?
[Click here for more information about Tiger vs. Phil, including details about The Match’s format and course]
Well, it’s not the duo’s first rodeo on the golf course together.
Tiger and Manning have been golf partners on multiple occasions. They’ve played private matches together as well as joined each other for Wednesday pro-ams ahead of PGA Tour events.
Last year, Manning and Woods played together on the Wednesday before the Memorial Tournament.
Manning’s golf skills have drastically improved since stepping away from the game of football, according to Woods. And it showed as the NFL Hall of Famer ended their round with an impressive 18-foot birdie putt.
Needless to say Tiger was impressed.
“He drives it great. And he gave me a great read on 18,” Tiger said about Manning’s golf game.
“He’s gotten so much better,” Woods said. “When we first played, he was just kind of starting out in the game. But now that he’s retired he can play a lot more golf. That’s been pretty cool for me to be able to play with him throughout the years.”
Tiger went on to have a pretty impressive tournament himself. Woods finished T9 in his first PGA appearance following a missed cut at the 2019 PGA Championship.
Tiger and Manning Bond Over Similarities
Both Manning and Woods have bonded over the injuries they had had to overcome to maintain greatness and win again in their respective sports.
For Manning, that meant battling back from a neck injury and surgery that forced him to sit out the entire 2011 season with the Indianapolis Colts.
Woods has missed the better half of the last decade with nagging back concerns.
We know how Manning’s story ended on the football field. He left the Indianapolis Colts and made two Super Bowls with the Denver Broncos. The first of which was in 2013 after a record-setting season that saw Manning throw for 55 touchdowns and 5,477 passing yards on his way to a fifth MVP.
The Broncos fell short in the Super Bowl XLVII, losing to the Seattle Seahawks, but Manning would follow up by becoming the all-time leader in passing touchdowns in 2014 before winning his second Super Bowl in 2015, his final NFL season.
Tiger’s resurgence and triumph at Augusta National in the 2019 Masters Championship bear similarities to that of Manning’s. But as we all know, Tiger’s story isn’t over.
Tiger started the 2019-20 season with a win at the ZOZO Championship in Asia followed by a fourth-place finish at the Hero World Challenge in early December and a T9 at the Farmers Insurance Open heading into February.
Woods decided to take a break from tournament golf to rest his back before the first major championship of the year. Unfortunately the global coronavirus pandemic led to a break for all golfers, not just Woods
It’s safe to say Woods is feeling healthy if he’s willing to give this a go two weeks before the PGA is scheduled to resume play on June 11 in Forth Worth, Texas for the Charles Schwab Challenge.
Will Woods be able to avenge his 2018 loss to Phil with Manning by his side? Less than two weeks until we find out.
Image Credit: USA Today Sports Images