Tiger Woods says he’s getting better, stronger

Tiger Woods can see the light at the end of the tunnel. He just does not know how close he is to reaching it. The only thing he can measure for sure is his feeling about playing golf on tour. “I miss being out there,” he said Wednesday. “I miss being with the dudes.”

At least, he said, his surgically repaired back and his outlook are better than they were during a news conference in December, when he was philosophical and wan. Back then, he acknowledged that all he could do was play video games. At the time, he faced the possibility that his career was over and said, “Where’s the light at the end of the tunnel? I don’t know.”

On Wednesday afternoon, at a news conference marking the opening of The Playgrounds, a 10-hole course he designed at Bluejack National outside of Houston, he said that his mindset is “a heck of a lot better than then.” The 14-time major champion still is frustrated about having no idea when he will be able to play tournament golf again, but he believes that day will come.

“The one thing I do know is I am progressing, I’m getting better. I’m getting stronger. And I’ve just had to take it day by day,” he said.

Earlier in the day, he released a statement on tigerwoods.com, saying that he has been chipping, putting and challenging his 7-year-old son to short-game contests. “The loser has to do push-ups,” he said on the site. Later, he smiled when he said his son Charlie occasionally has beaten him. That was much different from his situation at the end of 2015, when he couldn’t even play catch with his two children.

Woods had a microdiscectomy on his back in 2014, then had another one last September. The latter still did not completely heal him and he needed an unspecified follow-up on Oct. 31.

He clearly wanted to disprove speculation that surfaced on Twitter last week, suggesting that his back is still so bad that he must recline in the passenger’s seat of a car whenever he goes anywhere.

When he was asked Wednesday how he reacts to such reports, he said, “Welcome to my life.”

Jason Day, winner of the 2015 PGA Championship, said Wednesday that he had an encouraging nearly hourlong phone conversation with Woods last week. Day sought advice on mental strength. “If you’re going to pick a guy’s brain, he’s the guy,” Day said during a news conference preceding the WGC Cadillac Championship in Miami.

Woods admitted Wednesday that he had rushed back too soon from other injuries. “Has it cost me? Yes, it probably has,” he said. “But that’s what athletes do.”