Woods practicing at full speed, knee feels 'great'

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Tiger Woods grimaces in pain after hitting a shot at Torrey Pines last June.

It's still not known when exactly Tiger Woods will return to the PGA TOUR, but according to Woods, he's getting close.

"My knee feels great," said Woods, who was a guest on ESPN Radio's Mike & Mike In the Morning on Wednesday. "It feels kind of nice to swing and not have your bones move. It's a nice feeling, a feeling I haven't had in a long time, so I'm looking forward to getting back to competing."

Woods, sidelined since season-ending knee surgery following his U.S. Open win at Torrey Pines last June, has been practicing at full speed at Isleworth Country Club -- his home course in Orlando, Fla. -- and says he just needs to get his stamina up to where it used to be.

"It's just a matter of getting my ball count up and my endurance back up, golf-wise, where I can practice all day like I used to," Woods said. "That's been the biggest hurdle.

"Like all athletes trying to recover the next day from a hard practice session, I'm a little sore here and there, but overall I'm feeling great."

Woods' instructor, Hank Haney, who spent most of January with Woods in Orlando, wasn't any more specific about the return of the world's No. 1 player, but did hint it will be soon.

"He's not ready right now," Haney said from the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando last week. "But he's more ready this week than he was last week. He hasn't had any setbacks. He wants to play Augusta (in April), and he's going to need to get in some events."

So what events could those be?

Two possibilities are the World Golf Championships-CA Championship March 12-15 and the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard on March 26-29. Woods is a three-time winner at Doral and a five-time champion at Bay Hill, where he won last year.

Another outside possibility for Woods, the 2008 winner of this week's Buick Invitational, is the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship in three weeks, which he's won three of the last six years, including last season.

After last year's U.S. Open victory, Woods admitted he had been playing for at least 10 months with a torn ligament in his left knee and that he suffered a double stress fracture in his left leg two weeks before the tournament. He also missed two months following surgery to repair torn cartilage in the knee after last year's Masters, but returned for the U.S. Open.

In Woods' 12-year career, this is the longest stretch that he's been out of golf. Before last year's Masters, Woods twice had knee surgery but missed little time on both occasions. In 2006, he was out nine weeks between the Masters and the U.S. Open following the death of his father.