Woods was facing questions from a group of reporters for the first time since crashing his car into a firehydrant outside his Florida home on 27 November 2009.
His last victory came two years ago, at the Australian Masters, which preceded by less than two weeks his famous encounter with the firehydrant, followed by scandal, a series of left-leg maladies and a crisis of on-course confidence.
Some of the other firefighting equipment founded in Chicago is less high-tech: the snorkel truck, the fire plug or hydrant, the collapsible fire escape and the fire pole, which was invented by a Chicago fire captain in 1874 so firefighters could slide quickly to the ground floor.