Tiger Woods jokes around about playing on Champions Tour

Tiger Woods was clearly in a good mood when talking about his first public golf course, to be named Payne’s Valley in Branson, Mo., in honor of Payne Stewart.

While he was never asked during a news conference about when he’ll return to the PGA Tour, he was asked about the Champions Tour.

Woods, 41, himself had some fun with it when he pointed to Tom Lehman, moderator for the news conference, and said, “Nine more years. That’s all I’ve got, nine more years before I’m going to beat you on the senior tour.”

And that bit of joking led a reporter later to ask Tiger whom he would like to team up with on the Champions Tour someday.

“Team up with? Is there teams?” Woods said.  “Who would I want to team up with? That’s a good question. The problem is there’s really no one my age right now.  Most of the guys on the Champions Tour are all guys I played with, growing up, when I first played the Tour.  And now there’s a whole new young crop of guys who are in their 20s, not a lot of guys my age.

“I would say the person I’m closest to is probably Stricks (Steve Stricker), but he’s already out here. He’ll be 59 by then. I don’t know if he’ll be in some tree hunting somewhere. If I can get him out of the tree, then probably.”

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