It was the latest in a series of operations and injuries that have kept the American sidelined since missing the cut at The Open in July 2024.
“It’s just one of those things where it’s each and every day, I keep trying, I keep progressing,” said Woods.
“I keep working on it, trying to get stronger, trying to get more endurance in this body and trying to get it at a level at which I can play at the highest level again.”
Speaking at the Riviera Country Club near Los Angeles, where he hosts this week’s Genesis Invitational, Woods said he has progressed from chipping and putting practice and is now “able to” hit full shots.
“Not well every day, but I can hit them,” he said.
“As far as the disc replacement, it’s just sore. It takes time. My body has been through a lot.”
Woods claimed his fifth Masters title in 2019, ending an 11-year major championship drought, and added that he had not ruled out competing at Augusta from 9-12 April.
He suffered severe leg injuries in a 2021 car crash before undergoing a back operation in September 2024 and suffering a ruptured Achilles tendon last March.
“I’ve had a fused back and now a disc replacement, so it’s challenging,” said the 50-year-old. “Now I’ve entered a new decade so that number is starting to sink in and has us thinking about the opportunity to be able to play in a cart [on the Champions Tour].”
In May 2026 my father will be turning 95 years old! We, his three children, wish to throw him a party for about 12 people. Some guests will be elderly with walkers and canes. We would love to host this on a budget and preferably either in the San Fernando Valley or on the Westside. If it really fits the bill, we would consider other parts of Los Angeles as well. Maybe a lovely patio or some sort of charming restaurant that harks back to another time that my father would enjoy.
My dad is a retired game show television producer. He loves the arts, writing, movies, comedy, sports, TV and even continues to produce entertainment shows at his senior assisted living facility. We are so blessed to have him in our lives. — Amy Greenberg
Looking for things to do in L.A.? Ask us your questions and our expert guides will share highly specific recommendations.
Here’s what we suggest:
Happy early birthday to your dad! Ninety-five is a major feat that is definitely worth celebrating. I’ve put together a list of four restaurants with patios that I think will fit the vibe that you’re looking for.
When I think about nostalgic eateries, Casablanca in Venice is the first spot that comes to mind. Open since 1980, the old-school Mexican restaurant doubles as a shrine to the 1943 film of the same name. It offers all of the Mexican classics you’d expect (burritos, tacos and quesadillas) and even has a margarita cart. There’s an outdoor patio (which can be reserved for a fee on Thursdays or Sundays), but my colleague Amy King, Times creative director and deputy managing editor, says the vibe is much cooler inside. For special occasions, notably birthdays, the restaurant gives the celebrant a padlock to place on a gate outside of the restaurant — a callback to the Pont des Arts in Paris, a bridge where visitors used to place “love locks.”
Given that your father worked in show business, he may already be familiar with the Smoke House in Burbank, which is just minutes away from Warner Bros. Studios. With headshots of stars hanging on the walls and blood-red vinyl booths, the restaurant has been a draw for Hollywood types since the late 1940s. My colleague Christopher Reynolds, who recently went with his wife and friends who were visiting from out of town, tells me “You really feel that the restaurant has been in that location since 1949.” He also says the cheesy garlic bread is a must-try. If you’d prefer a semi-private room instead of a table in the main dining room, the minimum fee is $1,200, which will be applied to your order.
For a laidback restaurant with a backyard barbecue feel, consider Le Great Outdoor in the Bergamot Station complex in Santa Monica. The completely alfresco restaurant is adorned with picnic tables spread across two levels and dreamy string lights. Le Great Outdoor’s menu changes based on what’s available at the local farmers market and everything is cooked over a live fire. Senior food editor Danielle Dorsey notes that the restaurant has a “casual and convivial” atmosphere, making it a fun place to host a birthday party, especially on a sunny day.
Another great Westside option is Gilbert’s El Indio in Santa Monica, which has “good food and a nice patio,” King also tells me. Even “Full House” star Jodie Sweetin has given the family-owned restaurant her stamp of approval: “It’s just such a great classic California-Mexican restaurant,” she said in her Sunday Funday feature. A staffer told me that it’s best to call the restaurant to make a reservation for your party.
Your dad sounds like such an interesting and fun man, so I hope that these recommendations help you plan a great birthday party for him. If you end up checking out any of these spots, please send us a photo. We’d love to see it. Good luck with planning and, most importantly, have a wonderful time!
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says he hopes talks with the United States will resume soon, while US President Donald Trump pledged another round of negotiations next week following mediated discussions in Oman.
Araghchi told Al Jazeera on Saturday that Iran’s missile programme was “never negotiable” in Friday’s talks, and warned Tehran would target US military bases in the Middle East if the US attacks Iranian territory.
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He added that despite the negotiations in Muscat being indirect, “an opportunity arose to shake hands with the American delegation”. The talks were “a good start“, but he insisted “there is a long way to go to build trust”.
Iranians in the capital, Tehran, however, seemed less positive.
“In my opinion, like previous times, negotiations will end without results because both sides are sticking to their own positions and not willing to back down,” a woman who asked to remain anonymous told Al Jazeera.
Abdullah al-Shayji, a US foreign policy expert at Kuwait University, said he hopes for a new deal between the two foes but is not feeling optimistic.
“There is a strong position” from the US and “being provoked by” Israel to “clamp down on the Iranians because they feel that Iran is at its weakest point” so that it will be easy to extract concessions from it, especially after last month’s antigovernment demonstrations, al-Shayji said from the Al Jazeera Forum in Qatar’s capital Doha.
‘Inalienable right’
Despite calling the talks “very good” on Friday, Trump signed an executive order effective from Saturday that called for the “imposition of tariffs” on countries still doing business with Iran.
The US also announced new sanctions against numerous shipping entities and vessels aimed at curbing Iran’s oil exports.
More than one-quarter of Iran’s trade is with China, including $18bn in imports and $14.5bn in exports in 2024, according to World Trade Organization data.
Nuclear enrichment is Iran’s “inalienable right and must continue”, Araghchi said, adding, “We are ready to reach a reassuring agreement on enrichment. The Iranian nuclear case will only be resolved through negotiations.”
Iran’s missile programme is non-negotiable because it relates to a “defence issue”, he said.
Washington has sought to address Iran’s ballistic missile programme and its support for armed groups in the region – issues that Israel has pushed to include in the talks, according to media reports.
Tehran has repeatedly rejected expanding the scope of the negotiations beyond the nuclear issue.
“The Iranians are vehemently opposed to any concessions,” said al-Shayji, as is the US, which makes it extremely hard for countries leading mediation efforts to “get them closer together”.
Friday’s negotiations were the first since nuclear talks between Iran and the US collapsed last year following Israel’s unprecedented bombing campaign against Iran, which triggered a 12-day war.
The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln transiting the Arabian Sea in 2012 [File: AFP]
‘Peace through strength’
Trump’s lead negotiators in Oman, special envoy Steve Witkoff and presidential adviser Jared Kushner, visited the aircraft carrier stationed in the Arabian Sea on Saturday.
In a social media post, Witkoff said the aircraft carrier and its strike group are “keeping us safe and upholding President Trump’s message of peace through strength.”
Witkoff said he spoke with the pilot who downed an Iranian drone that approached the carrier “without clear intent” on Tuesday.
“Proud to stand with the men and women who defend our interests, deter our adversaries, and show the world what American readiness and resolve look like, on watch every day,” said Witkoff.
While Trump has sought to use the aircraft carrier’s deployment as a means to exert pressure on Iran, al-Shayji said this cannot be a long-term strategy.
“He [Trump] can’t keep his forces at alert stage for too long. This would really discredit Trump’s administration regarding being very harsh and hard-liners on Iran,” he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to meet Trump on Wednesday to discuss the Iran talks, his office said in a statement.
Netanyahu “believes any negotiations must include limitations on ballistic missiles and a halting of the support for the Iranian axis”, it said, referring to Iran’s allies in the region.
During the 12-day war, US warplanes bombed Iranian nuclear sites.
Araghchi expressed hope that Washington would refrain from “threats and pressure” so “the talks can continue”.
Successful romances star at least one looker. I don’t mean someone attractive. I mean an actor who gazes at their scene partner with such delight that we swoon, too. Clark Gable was a looker. Diane Keaton was a looker. The combined eyeball voltage of Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone is so powerful that it’s turned silly scripts into hits.
Harry Melling is a late-blooming looker. Onscreen most of his youth as the Muggle brat Dudley Dursley in the “Harry Potter” franchise, Melling is only just now getting to show off that talent in the funny-kinky “Pillion,” which puts him on his knees beaming up at Alexander Skarsgård’s 6-foot-4 biker as though this blond hunk was the sun. His Colin, a shy gay man who sings the high notes in a barbershop quartet, is so visibly infatuated licking Skarsgård’s leather boots in a dark alley that you believe he lusts for humiliation. Colin has only just discovered that fact about himself. He’s yet to even learn this man’s name. (It’s Ray.)
Perhaps you’d like to be taken to dinner first, but “Pillion” is about Colin’s needs — specifically his need to please — and first-time feature filmmaker Harry Lighton challenges us to root for his bliss. This fetishy adventure is a minimalist romantic comedy in which submissive meets dominant, and submissive explores his physical and emotional vulnerabilities. Marriage and a baby carriage are off the table; the journey matters, not the destination.
“Pillion” is what motorcyclists call the passenger seat, at least in suburban England where this is set. It’s a passive position compared to the driver, but still a cooler upgrade from where Colin starts the movie riding in: the rear of a sedan. Out the car’s back window, he sees Ray zoom by in white Stormtrooper-looking gear and, by happenstance, bumps into him that night at a pub where Colin’s mother, Peggy (Lesley Sharp), has set up a blind date with a nice bloke. That guy gets forgotten the instant Ray slips Colin a note with a time and place to meet.
Peggy isn’t panicked by her son’s alpha-male predilections. “I think a biker sounds exciting,” she says with a grin. His father, Pete (Douglas Hodge), just wants him to wear a helmet. Neither parent is privy to the fact that Ray simply isn’t very nice. Ray controls the gobsmacked Colin quietly, calculating the bare minimum of kindness required to have a house boy willing to cook dinner, tend to his Rottweiler and sleep on the floor. He withholds his approval to keep the paler, smaller man anxious.
That Rottweiler contended for the Palm Dog at last year’s Cannes, a prize for the festival’s best canine. Frankly, Melling himself should have won. His performance is pure puppy, from the way he silently studies Ray’s silent cues to the eagerness with which he leaps up to fetch Ray a beer. When Ray lavishes attention on another biker’s pet pillion, Kevin (Jake Shears of the Scissor Sisters), Colin sulks until his master unzips his trousers and gives him a treat.
Flexing his abs in shiny Motoralls, Skarsgård uses his own appeal to expose an unattractive wrinkle in human behavior: Ray is so gorgeous that everyone just takes it as fact that Colin is lucky to be near him. When a coworker asks this scrawny geek how he bagged a hunk like Ray, Colin brags that he has “an aptitude for devotion,” which includes wearing a padlock around his neck and shaving his Byronesque curls so that he looks like a zealot — which in a way, he is.
Over and over, Colin takes stock of his own debasement. But then he looks at his model-handsome lover and calculates that his suffering is worth it. He’s good at compartmentalizing; he’s a parking violations attendant who tickets angry people all day. When he needs an excuse to cry, he finds one (and it hurts to watch).
Lately, it’s been a thrill to see queer stories confidently leapfrog over coming-out narratives to the trickier question of whether two individuals in particular are a decent match. Lighton leaps further than that — he goes full Evel Knievel by daring to ask how we feel about a relationship that’s indecent, but still has worth as a set of training wheels for a wobbly young man learning what he wants.
It’s a more optimistic take on Colin and Ray’s coupledom than was in the book that inspired the script, Adam Mars-Jones’ 2020 novella “Box Hill,” which was subtitled “A Story of Low Self-Esteem.” A study of the psychology of abuse, that story’s more brainwashed version of Colin finds him decades older looking back on the affair and pining for a relationship that reads as horrible between the lines.
Lighton isn’t oblivious to the power imbalance, but he’s made a movie about going forward, not being stuck. He trusts his naif with more agency, and so “Pillion” is freer to play its insults for laughs. You’ll giggle a lot. That gleam in Melling’s eyes makes it feel like a comic fantasy, although who knows? Perhaps there really are BDSM biker gangs hosting afternoon picnics with serving boys tied spread-eagled on a buffet table. That bucolic scene is filmed in a slow pivot around the park, cinematographer Nick Morris getting a chuckle from how the image shifts from Georges Seurat to “Hellraiser.”
Eventually, Colin’s parents will be more flinchy about his new boyfriend, leading to a beat or two that don’t land with the impact they could. Oddly, Lighton might be too restrained himself. Like his leads, he prefers to say everything with a look.
But while Melling is always endearingly open and responsive, Skarsgård stays unreadable. His Ray always seems to be hiding behind a motorcycle visor even when he’s not and when he deigns to speak, the words trail off in a huff of exhaustion. The only thing we know about Ray’s life are the names of his two previous dogs, and that’s only because he has them tattooed on his chest.
Any more personal facts about Ray — his own job or family or romantic history, even his favorite movie — would risk us clinging onto it too tightly as an explanation of what he gets out of this himself. Serving Ray’s pleasure is Colin’s focus. And our focus is on Colin’s pursuit of that.
Yet with subtle skill, Skarsgård reveals that Ray is thinking about Colin more than he’s willing to let on. Curiosity flickers across his face when his submissive surprises him. He stays gruff, of course, but you sense that Ray is as manacled by his authoritarian role as Colin literally is in his hungry, slurping devotion to his master. Puny and pathetic as Colin appears, he begins to seem like the braver of the two. It takes courage to map your own boundaries — then to cross over that line and get hurt, and get back up and out there. Lighton’s biker BDSM rom-com might sound niche, but free yourself to see it and you’ll discover it’s a universal romance.
