Tiger Woods News 2015: Golf Legend Retiring Soon? Announces Leave of Absence Due To Injury

Tiger Woods announced that he will take a leave of absence, which spurred talks that the golf superstar might be retiring soon.

On February 11, 2015, Woods announced on his website that he has a couple of things to settle before he returns to playing tournament golf, based on a report by Yahoo! Sports.

The first issue involves going through physical therapy on a daily basis to treat the back injury that caused him to withdraw from the Farmers Insurance Open in Round 1, after 11 holes. According to Woods, his game is not ready for tournaments and he will not play until his health improves.

The second issue involves spending time with the people who are important him.

Woods wrote on TigerWoods.com, "Right now, I need a lot of work on my game, and to still spend time with the people that are important to me. My play, and scores, are not acceptable for tournament golf. Like I've said, I enter a tournament to compete at the highest level, and when I think I'm ready, I'll be back. Next week I will practice at Medalist and at home getting ready for the rest of the year. I am committed to getting back to the pinnacle of my game."

According to USA Today, Woods did share his plan to join The Honda Classic. If he decides to skip the tournament, he might be at the Arnold Palmer Invitational on March 19-22, 2015. After which, he could also head to Georgia for the Masters on April 9-12, 2015.

He wrote, "Next week I will practice at Medalist (Golf Club) and at home (in Jupiter, Fla.) getting ready for the rest of the year. I am committed to getting back to the pinnacle of my game. I'd like to play the Honda Classic - it's a tournament in my hometown and it's important to me - but I won't be there unless my game is tournament-ready. That's not fair to anyone. I do, however, expect to be playing again very soon."

ESPN reported that despite ranking No. 1 in the past year, Woods has declined to No. 62 in the world rankings, the lowest in his professional career.

Woods' agent, Mark Steinberg, said that they did not state that the golf legend was taking a leave of absence. He explained that Woods will work on his game until it is back to form. He said that Woods' game was in bad shape after he made swing changes. Currently, Tiger is not pleased with his game and he needs to work on every aspect on his own.