Tiger Woods undergoes fusion surgery to treat post-traumatic arthritis in foot, out indefinitely

Tiger Woods has undergone another surgery following a painful Masters, and it's unclear when he will be able to golf again.

Woods’ team announced on social media Wednesday afternoon that he underwent a subtalar fusion procedure to address post-traumatic arthritis from the talus fracture he sustained in his career-threatening car crash in 2021.

His team didn’t provide a timeline for his recovery, and only said that Woods “looks forward to beginning his rehabilitation."

"The first goal is to recover and lead a much more enjoyable day-to-day life,” Woods' agent Mark Steinberg told the Associated Press.

A fusion surgery is when a surgeon combines two bones when one of them can't be repaired or replaced. That means that there was a bone in Woods' foot in such bad condition that it needed to be attached to another bone.

It's not the kind of news you want to hear about a golfer whose career depends on his leg holding up after it was nearly destroyed in 2021, but it does explain Woods' struggles at Augusta National earlier this month.

Woods narrowly made the cut after a slow and weather-delayed start at the Masters. He withdrew from the tournament on Sunday morning with 29 holes left, which ended his run of completed Masters. He has made the cut every time he's teed it up at Augusta since he turned pro in 1997, and matched the record of 23 consecutive cuts held by barely making it into the weekend. Yet on his early holes on Saturday before play was called, Woods looked like he was in a lot of pain.

He has completed just one tournament since last year's Masters — Woods made it through the Genesis Invitational in Los Angeles in February — but he withdrew from last year's PGA Championship due to injury, too.

With his latest surgery, it's now unclear when Woods will try to compete again. At best, many expected Woods would try to compete at the PGA Championship next month at Oak Hill in New York. Based on his recent string of injuries and the timing of this surgery, however, that's almost certainly out of the question.

The British Open, the final major of the year, is just more than three months out, and recovery time is estimated to be between 8-12 weeks, if not longer. As Woods has said he doesn't want to try and play much more than the major championships each season, and this surgery was done to help his "day-to-day life," it's hard to imagine he rushes back to play at Royal Liverpool in July, even with a quick recovery. His season may simply be done.