Tiger Woods’ Greatest Comeback Appears To Be Off The Golf Course

A swing and a hit.

Tiger Woods’ Greatest Comeback Appears To Be Off The Golf Course

Image: GolfWeek 2021 article (left); Getty Images 2022 (right)

Tiger Woods is undoubtedly one of the greatest players to have ever graced the game of golf. He is currently tied with golfing royalty Jack Nicklaus for number of PGA Tour wins and sits second behind the great man in terms of major championship wins, with 15, compared to Jack Nicklaus’ 18.

Tiger’s life on and off the golf course have been on the receiving end of equal amounts of media attention, and he has looked to have hung up his golf clubs on several previous occasions. His most recent retirement scare came in February 2021 when he was involved in a near-fatal car accident, which saw him suffer a shattered ankle and compound fractures in both legs.

But, in true professional and fighting spirit, Tiger Woods will compete in the 2022 Masters Tournament at the Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia. He’s even been quoted as saying he believes he can win it. It won’t just be the golf community that will be glued to their screens from April 7th – 10th, but much of the world will be eagerly awaiting to see if Tiger can produce (another) one of the greatest sporting comebacks in recent memory.

However, Tiger appears to already be on the verge of completing another major comeback and it all revolves around his hair.

Tiger Woods has never been a man to sport a completely full head of hair and it’s often difficult to find pictures of him, or indeed even see him, without his trademark baseball cap atop his head. But, find such an image and it’s clear he has suffered from male pattern baldness, otherwise known as androgenetic alopecia.

According to Medline Plus, this is a common form of hair loss in both men and women (it’s not the exact same cause of hair loss for Jada Pinkett Smith, which became the butt of a Chris Rock joke at the 94th Academy Awards ceremony) and sees the hair become thin and lost above the temples and crown, and eventually sees the hairline recede.

The main cause of this form of alopecia is a “heightened sensitivity of scalp follicles to dihydrotestosterone (DHT)”, according to a report published in the National Library of Medicine.

Tiger Woods may have only recently started treatment, since some recent images of him during preview rounds for the Masters show him with a slight bald spot around his crown still. However, the image at the top of this article clearly show a comeback of his hairline.

DMARGE has previously spoken with David Allen, who has undergone a hair transplant himself and has started his own business providing hair loss solutions for men, about hair transplants. He’s previously told us “You can inherit DHT from either parent. DHT causes the hair follicles to go through a process called miniaturisation. The hair becomes weaker and weaker and thinner until it can’t push through the skin anymore, so the skin grows over it.”

“For some reason, and nobody really knows why, but DHT doesn’t affect the hair on the sides and back of your head.”

It’s not completely clear what kind of treatment Tiger Woods has undergone, but considering his wealth, it’s most likely going to have been Follicular Unit Extraction. This, David Allen has told us, sees hairs taken from the back and sides of the head, which are then individually planted into the follicles on the top of the head.

Tiger Woods isn’t the only male celebrity to have undergone an alleged hair transplant, as Formula 1 drivers Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel, footballer Wayne Rooney and actor Joel McHale all appear to have undergone treatment to great effect.

The 2022 Masters will tee off on Thursday 7th April 10.34am ET/Friday 8th April 12.34am AEST, with Tiger Woods in the first group alongside Louis Oosthuizen and Joaquin Niemann. Australian viewers can watch all the action via the Kayo sports streaming service.

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