The AT&T National golf tournament will take place for the last time at Aronimink golf course just outside of Philadelphia from June 30-July 3. Next year it will return to its home at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland. Congressional is hosting the US Open this year. Tiger Woods is the host of the annual event and he says he's excited to return to Philadelphia.
"We're excited about having the opportunity to come back here to the Philly area. Obviously this is an unbelievable sporting town. They came out last year and really supported this event, embraced this event, and really truly embraced what we're trying to do for kids."
Despite the fact that Woods tweeted before the press conference that if no reporter asked about his leg, he would donate one million dollars to charity, the very first question he fielded was obviously about the injury that forced him to pull out of the TPC Sawgrass event.
"It's been great. Been resting, haven't been able to do do much." Woods said. "I've been in a boot for my Achilles. I've been in crutches to take some pressure off my knee because obviously in a boot you start limping and that gets a little sore. I'm going to start strength training by the end of next week and try and get it in golf shape."
Tiger said that his muscles had atrophied from the lack of use, so his first priority is building those muscles back up. The progress of that will determine when he can start hitting balls again. He says he has every reason to believe he'll not only be ready for Aronimink, but should also be healthy for the US Open two weeks prior.
He says that he feels much more prepared to deal with injuries now than in the past.
"The good news is I've done this before," he said. "I've gone through injuries before. I've taken the time out to take it step by step of how to get into that mindset. As I said, in '08 it was really tough to shut it down for six months. Something I love to do to not be able to do it at all. That's kind of where I've been at mentally, trying to prepare myself and when I finally get back practicing it will be that much more fun to hit balls and go out in the evening to just work on my game."
He also downplayed the severity of what he is currently going through. Tiger says that his current injury is not the "doomsday" that some writers have suggested.
"I was certainly a lot more concerned back in '08 and finishing out the year in '07 with my ACL already ruptured, then to have surgery right after the Masters that year to clean up the cartilage because I was playing on it still. That period of my career was... a lot more difficult. This one is a cakewalk compared to that one."
In addition to Tiger, some of the golfers who have verbally committed to the AT&T National are defending champ Justin Rose, Lucas Glover, Jim Furyk, Dustin Johnson, K.J. Choi and Shawn O'Hair, who makes his home in Westchester.