By Tom Keppeler, Knee1 Staff
Professional golf maven Tiger Woods was supposed to ease into this week’s $4-million Pebble Beach Pro-Am Tournament and hobble the competition. Instead, because of an overzealous fan, Woods will be hobbling himself.
Woods had finished a practice round on three Monterey Peninsula courses when the defending champion was bombarded by a group of autograph-seeking fans. One zealous fan grabbed a hold of foot, twisting the world leader’s left knee. As a result, the king of golf’s title is in question.
“His weight…coming at me hyperextended my knee,” Woods told the Associated Press after the accident.
Early Thursday morning, Woods had the suspected sprain tested and asserted he will still play in the Pro-Am alongside such celebrities as actor Bill Murray and ballet dancer Mikhail Barishnikov. When he walked onto the greens Thursday morning, his limp was barely visible, according to the AP. “I should be able break 90 today,” he told the AP.
Woods is no stranger to knee troubles, however. While at Stanford, he had a cyst removed from the back of his knee. In this week’s Pro-Amateur tournament, he will play with his former Stanford teammate Jerry Chang.
Anyone with a sprain should take great care not to re-injure the wound. Although Woods’ doctors have not publicly declared their diagnosis, his injury was originally deemed a sprain, a partial or complete tear of a ligament in the knee. Doing so decreases the stability of the joint, and repeated small sprains can eventually raise the degree of laxity, or looseness, within a joint. While Tiger is back on the greens now, his first step with the injury was the most appropriate with a suspected sprain: he visited a doctor.
To read more about sprains in the knee, click here.
Photo courtesy of the Associated Press.
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