Tiger Woods faces another injury and lost year. Has golf seen the last of him?

“It sucks,” Rory McIlroy said Wednesday at The Players Championship. “He doesn’t have much luck when it comes to injuries and his body. Hoping he’s in good spirits and hoping he’s OK. We obviously won’t see him play golf this year, and hopefully we see him maybe play in 2026.”

Everything is “maybe” with Woods, the player who made golf cool to watch, who caused TV ratings to spike and prize money to soar, who delivered a level of dominance measured not only by his 15 majors and 82 titles on the PGA Tour, but the fact that he had no lasting rival — until the injuries and surgeries began to accumulate.

His mother, Kultida, died last month and Woods withdrew from the Genesis Invitational as he coped with the loss. He chose not to be at The Players Championship, the final year of his exemption from winning the 2019 Masters.

“As I began to ramp up my own training and practice at home, I felt a sharp pain in my left Achilles, which was deemed to be ruptured,” he said in the post.

Another lost year for a player running out of time. The list of injuries is staggering.

The left knee. The lower back. Two stress fractures in his left tibia while winning the 2008 US Open. An injury to his right Achilles tendon while running. An injury to his left Achilles tendon from hitting a shot off an awkward lie at the Masters.

Six back surgeries, the most significant to fuse his lower back in 2017. A car crash on a coastal road outside Los Angeles that so badly damaged his right leg and ankle that he said doctors contemplated amputation. Plantar fasciitis. A strained oblique. Surgery to fuse his right ankle.

He kept coming back, and he remained a must-see attraction even though his appearance were largely limited to the majors. He has played eight majors since the 2021 car crash and only twice finished all 72 holes — both at the Masters. He was never in the hunt at either one.

There was a time when Woods was on pace to break the gold standard in golf — 18 majors won by Jack Nicklaus — until that looked more unlikely with each injury.

“If he’d have been healthy, I think he would have got it,” Nicklaus said in an interview two weeks ago with Golf Channel. “But he didn’t remain healthy. We all have injuries, we all have different things that change things. Tiger had his problems. I feel bad for him.”

Nicklaus recalled telling Woods: “Nobody wants their records to be broken. But I don’t want it not to be broken because you don’t have the ability to do so. I feel bad for him on that.”

Woods won his last major at the 2019 Masters, an astonishing victory considering it was only two years earlier that he struggled to walk up the stairs to the Masters Club dinner. And then he won later in the year in Japan for his record-tying 82nd title on the PGA Tour.

That was his last win. He hasn’t come close since.

What keeps him going? What is there left to prove? That’s a question all golfers face, whether it’s age or injury. Few other sports offer such longevity.

McIlroy turns 36 in May — this is his 18th year as a pro. He knows the day is coming, and he has mapped out an exit strategy.

“Whenever I feel like the time is right, I’ll have no problem moving aside and letting the next generation do their thing,” McIlroy said. “I’d also like to walk away with a little bit left in the tank. I don’t want to be out there embarrassing myself. I’d like to walk away maybe a little before I should, put it that way.

“I think if you can come to terms with that and walk away on your own terms, then that’s a good thing.”

Nicklaus never wanted to be a ceremonial golfer. He played in all the majors for 12 years after winning his last one at the 1986 Masters.

Has golf seen the last of Woods? He is exempt for life at the Masters and PGA Championship. He can play the British Open for 10 more years. He can walk away on his own terms, but his health will have a big say in that.

McIlroy was asked if he could ever see Woods being competitive again. That’s what so many fans want to see — hope to see — in the absence of any evidence the last five years.

“He’ll try — I know he’ll try,” McIlroy said. “But that’s a question for him, not for me. I obviously don’t know what’s in his head. But judging by prior behavior, he’ll definitely try.”

A look at the injuries for Tiger Woods, who had surgery Tuesday on a ruptured left Achilles tendon.

▪ December 1994: Has surgery on left knee to remove two benign tumors and scar tissue.

▪ Dec. 13, 2002: Has surgery on left knee to remove fluid inside and outside the ACL and remove benign cysts from his left knee. Misses the season opener in 2003.

▪ August 2007: Ruptures the ACL in his left knee while running on a golf course after the British Open but is able to keep playing. Wins five of the last six tournaments he plays, including the PGA Championship for his 13th major.

▪ April 15, 2008: Two days after the Masters, has arthroscopic surgery on his left knee to repair cartilage damage.

▪ May 2008: Advised weeks before the US Open that he has two stress fractures of the left tibia and should rest for six weeks, the first three weeks on crutches.

▪ June 24, 2008: Eight days after winning the US Open, has surgery to repair the ACL in his left knee by using a tendon from his right thigh. Additional cartilage damage is repaired. Misses the rest of the season.

▪ December 2008: Injures his Achilles tendon in his right leg as he was running while preparing to return to golf.

▪ Nov. 27, 2009: Is hospitalized overnight with a sore neck and a cut lip that required five stitches when the SUV he was driving ran over a fire hydrant and into a tree.

▪ May 9, 2010: Withdraws from the final round of The Players Championship, citing a bulging disk. He later said it was a neck issue that caused tingling in his right side, and that it first became a problem as he began practicing harder for his return to the Masters a month earlier.

▪ April 10, 2011: Injures his left Achilles tendon hitting from an awkward stance below Eisenhower’s Tree on the 17th at Augusta National.

▪ May 12, 2011: Withdraws from The Players Championship after a 42 on the front nine. Is diagnosed with an MCL sprain in his left knee and a left Achilles tendon strain. He misses the next two months, including two majors.

▪ March 11, 2012: Feels tightness in his left Achilles tendon and withdraws after 11 holes of the final round in the Cadillac Championship at Doral. He wins in his next start at Bay Hill, his first PGA Tour victory since the scandal in his personal life.

▪ Aug. 24, 2012: Moves stiffly during the second round of The Barclays and later says he felt pain in his lower back, which he attributed to a soft mattress in his hotel room.

▪ June 13, 2013: Is seen shaking his left arm during the opening round of the US Open. He later says it’s a left elbow strain that he injured while winning The Players Championship a month earlier. He misses two tournaments and returns at the British Open.

▪ Aug. 11, 2013: Says he felt tightness in his back during the final round of the PGA Championship.

▪ Aug. 21, 2013: Two weeks after the PGA Championship, he drops to his knees after one shot because of back spasms in the final round of The Barclays.

▪ March 2, 2014: Withdraws after 13 holes of the final round at The Honda Classic because of lower back pain and spasms, describing it as similar to what he felt at The Barclays.

▪ March 9, 2014: Plays the final 12 holes with pain in his lower back, saying it began to flare up after hitting out of the bunker from an awkward lie in the Cadillac Championship at Doral. He shoots 78, the highest score of his career in a final round.

▪ March 19, 2014: Withdraws from the Arnold Palmer Invitational because of the persistent pain in his back. He was the two-time defending champion.

▪ March 31, 2014: Has surgery in Utah for a pinched nerve.

▪ April 1, 2014: Announces he will miss the Masters and not return to golf until the summer.

▪ Sept. 16, 2015: Has a second microdiscectomy surgery to remove a disc fragment that was pinching his nerve.

▪ Oct. 28, 2015: Has a third surgery he describes as a follow-up to relieve discomfort.

▪ Feb. 3, 2017: Withdraws from the Dubai Desert Classic before the start of his second round with back spasms. He opened with a 77.

▪ April 19, 2017: Has surgery to fuse his lower back.

▪ May 30, 2017: Attributes an arrest on suspicion of driving under the influence when police find him asleep behind the wheel of a parked car as a reaction to prescription medication.

▪ March 4, 2019: Withdraws from the Arnold Palmer Invitational with what he describes as a neck strain that he has had for two weeks.

▪ Aug. 9, 2019: Withdraws after a 75 in the first round of FedEx Cup playoffs opener, citing a strained oblique.

▪ Aug. 27, 2019: Announces he had arthroscopic surgery the previous week to repair minor ligament damage in his left knee.

▪ Jan. 19, 2021: Announces he had a fifth microdiscectomy procedure on his back to remove a pressurized disc fragment.

▪ February 23, 2021: Crashes an SUV that police said was going about 85 mph in a 45 mph zone and suffers comminuted open fractures to the upper and lower sections of his right leg and trauma to his right ankle.

▪ April 9, 2023: Withdraws from the Masters instead of playing 28 holes in the cold. He attributes it to “reaggravating my plantar fasciitis.”

▪ April 19, 2023: Announces he had a subtalar fusion procedure on his right ankle to help with post-traumatic arthritis.

▪ Sept. 13, 2024: Announces a sixth surgery on his back to repair a nerve impingement.

▪ March 11, 2025: Has surgery for a ruptured Achilles tendon in his left foot that he hurt while ramping up practice and training.