Woods set to play at Augusta as Matsuyama defends title – Masters talking points

Tiger Woods plans to compete in the 86th Masters this week, less than 14 months after suffering serious injuries in an horrific car crash.

The 15-time major winner, who feared shortly after the accident that his right leg would have to be amputated, has not contested a top-level event since the 2020 Masters, which was played in November due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Here, the PA news agency looks at some of the main talking points ahead of the year’s first men’s major championship.

Woods not only told a packed press conference that he plans to play this week, but that he also feels he can win a 16th major title and sixth green jacket. While that sounds an unlikely occurrence even for Woods, the 46-year-old has never missed the cut in the Masters as a professional and has taken delight in proving his doubters wrong on numerous occasions. On his last Masters start in 2020, he famously took 10 on the 12th hole in the final round, but responded with five birdies in the last six holes.

The chances of Hideki Matsuyama joining the illustrious trio of back-to-back winners looked good when he ended his 2021 campaign with a five-shot victory in his native Japan and then won the Sony Open in Hawaii on his second start of 2022. However, a lingering back injury forced him to pull out of the Players Championship shortly before the start of round one and he withdrew from last week’s Valero Texas Open with a neck problem midway through the second round.

Since winning the Open Championship in 2014 to claim the third leg of the career grand slam, Rory McIlroy has had seven attempts to win at Augusta and join Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Woods in having won all four major titles. On all seven occasions McIlroy