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Tiger Woods said he has returned to his South Florida home to continue recovery from the serious leg injuries he suffered in a one-vehicle crash in Southern California on Feb. 23. Woods, 45, said in a statement via Twitter that he is "so grateful for the outpouring of support and encouragement that I have received over the past few weeks. "Thank you to all the incredible surgeons, doctors, nurses and staff at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center," Woods said in the statement. "You have all taken such great care of me and I cannot thank you enough. "I will be recovering at home and working on getting stronger every day." Woods, a 15-time major champion, had not played an official tournament since he tied for 38th at the November Masters. He was recovering from a Dec. 23 back procedure and hoping to ramp up activities when he went to Riviera Country Club to perform his hosting duties at the Genesis Invitational the weekend of Feb. 20-21. As part of that trip, Woods was also scheduled for two days of activities as part of an endorsement deal. He was on his way to the second day's events just after 7 a.m. local time when he was involved in the single-car crash in which his SUV hit a curb and rolled over. Woods needed to be extricated from the car and endured hours of surgery for what a doctor described as "significant orthopaedic injuries to his right lower extremity." As part of the statement that day released on Woods' Twitter account, Dr. Anish Mahajan of the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center said that Woods had multiple "open fractures'' to his lower right leg, and he had a rod placed in his tibia and screws and pins inserted in his foot and ankle during an emergency surgery. Later that week, Woods was transferred to another hospital, and his team had not released any official statements prior to Tuesday since Feb. 28. Several players, including Bryson DeChambeau and Justin Thomas, said that they had been in communication with Woods in recent weeks. Several wore red and black in his honor on Feb. 28 at the WGC-Workday Championship, and DeChambeau said he had received words of encouragement from Woods before winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Thomas said Sunday after winning the Players Championship that he, too, had been in touch with Woods. "I was replaying what he told me a lot in my head," Thomas said. "He likes to give me a lot of grief, especially when he's not here, and calling him, like Bryson said. ... We're all pulling for him. And I'm so glad to hear everything has been going well with him. "But part of me wishes he was here so I could rub it in his face a little bit more. But, no, I'm happy and I hope he's happy, and I always appreciate his help."
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