Tiger Woods Hair Transplant | Plastic Surgery Analysis

Tiger Woods Hair Transplant | Plastic Surgery Analysis

Tiger Woods, a legendary golfer, cultural icon, and one of the most recognizable athletes in the world. But as his career has spanned decades, fans have noticed more than just changes in his game. They’ve noticed changes in his hair. Today, we’ll explore the journey of Tiger Woods and try to determine if he’s had a hair transplant. In 1994, at the age of 19, we can see that Tiger has hair that is somewhat curly. It’s not the curliest type of hair that exists, but it does definitely have a curl to it. And curlier hair does provide better coverage for the scalp. Usually, the curlier one’s hair is, the less overall number of follicles that exist on their scalp. But each follicle actually provides better coverage. So, it can look quite full with fewer hairs. And tiger’s type of hair tends to be rather straight under the skin surface. When we do hair transplant surgery, most hair types tend to be fairly straight under the skin surface. As you get to the really, really curly hair, then you start to have a more curved follicle, and we need to adjust our surgical technique for that hair type. But in Tiger’s case, his hair type does not pose as much of a technical challenge for hair transplant surgery. But Tiger has good overall fullness here and maybe some slight temporal peak weakness. In 1995 at the age of 20, we see here that Tiger has a widow’s peak and that’s that area right in the center of the hairline that comes down a little bit. He also had proportional horizontal thirds at this point in his life. In 1996, at the age of 21, I see no change. In 1997, at the age of 22, we’re now starting to see some fronttoe temporal recession happening. It’s very mild, but it’s clearly there compared to just a few years before. And we see with this image from the back of his head that he has a strong donor supply. For most men, that amounts to about 6 to 8,000 graphs that can be harvested from the donor area over the course of usually several procedures if needed to be able to use in other areas like for example the frontal scalp or the crown or wherever it’s needed. Of course, some people have weaker donor areas that may not even be able to support that many graphs being harvested without thinning out the donor area more significantly. And it’s interesting here to see Tiger’s hat indentation line. You can see where along his scalp that’s forming. And that is around the level of where an FUT scar would be. More on that later. In 1998, at the age of 23, I see no change. In 1999 at the age of 24, we see in these images that Tiger now has some temporal thinning. That’s the area right here, right above the sideburns that in his case, you can clearly see is starting to thin. And you also can see that right at his hairline, Tiger’s hair is starting to miniaturaturize. So you can see that the more youthful type of rounded appearance to that fronttotemporal corner is starting to look thinner and that’s what’s going to fade as he ages. And as most of us age, we start to lose that configuration and we start to have a more pronounced fronttotemporal corner. And that’s why when we do surgical hairline designs, one thing that we usually avoid in men is creating that roundness because as people age, they no longer have that naturally. So again, with hair transplant surgery, it’s very important for us to create a natural look for someone. And we want it to look natural, not just when they’re young, like in their 20s and 30s, but way beyond that, right? When they’re older, they have this more permanent hair. We need it to look natural. And that starts with proper surgical planning and design of the hairline. We don’t want to take young guys, give them exactly what they’re asking for, which sometimes we know is not going to be a natural look later on. And then as time passes, they might regret the decisions that they made earlier in life. So it’s very important for hair surgeons to really guide their patients to create the best possible results not just for now but way into the future. In the year 2000 at the age of 25, we see that Tiger now has fronttotemporal recession that has slightly progressed and he’s now entering into that decade that I sometimes talk about, ages 25 to 35, where most guys will experience an acceleration of their hair loss. I think we should call this decade maybe the recession era. And so many patients reach out to me in this decade of life and they’re trying to get a transplant. But if they’re not on proper medical therapy, it’s usually best to wait until their hair loss pattern is more defined and something that resembles their more endstage of hair loss rather than jumping in with a big transplant, let’s say, to the hairline when they’re not properly medicated. That is fraught with lots of problems later in life. So again, it’s very important to be on medical therapy if you’re considering hair transplant surgery or if you’re just trying to prevent further hair loss and thicken up what you have. So again, the two main medications that I always talk about on this channel are finasteride or its stronger cousin dutasteride and that’s for preventing further loss. And then we have minoxidil and minoxidil works by thickening up our existing hair, but it’s not preventative. So, it’s not just about choosing the medication based on which side effect profile you prefer. It’s about choosing the right medication for what it is that you’re trying to achieve. And usually, it’s that combination of preventing further loss and trying to thicken up what you currently have that leads to the best results. And then you take that stable foundation and you start to include a transplant to augment the results. And then you can get a very nice final outcome that will be sustained over your whole life ideally. And for the best place to get finasteride and minoxidil at very affordable prices, these are generic medications. You should not overpay for them. Head to feel confident.com where you can order it right there on the website. Fill out your information. There’s a simple questionnaire and as long as there are no contraindications for you taking these medications, they will be shipped to your door. So this service is only available in the United States, but if you’re interested in learning more about it, feel confident.com. In 2001, at the age of 26, I see no change. In 2002, at the age of 27, when we compared Tiger’s images here, especially that right 3/4 view back to how he looked at the age of 21, we can clearly see the fronttotemporal thinning that has developed. This is something that’s progressed with time. And this is one clear sign of androgenetic alopecia. And people will often ask me, you know, what Norwood scale they are. As many of you know, I’m not the biggest fan of the Norwood scale for clinical use because the reality is there are hundreds, if not thousands of slightly different variations of male pattern loss. So to put all of that into seven classes of the Norwood scale is not exactly giving it justice as far as how people actually present in real life. But if you were to pin me down for a Norwood scale of Tiger’s case here in 2002, I would call it about a Norwood 2. In 2003, at the age of 28, I see no change. And that’s the same through 2005. In 2006 at the age of 31, we’re seeing some progressive frontal scalp thinning. And that whole frontal scalp region, you can almost see where the demarcation is in the back half or the posterior frontal scalp where that hair starts to thicken. Everything in front of it is starting to look much thinner. So, in addition to the recession that’s happening, there’s also a general thinning of that frontal scalp. Some people start to lose more hair in the crown initially and other people tend to have more of a predominant loss in the frontal area and for some people it starts to go in both areas around the same time. That again goes back to these slightly different patterns of androgenetic hair loss that exist in nature. Tiger’s crown here is starting to show maybe some very early signs of thinning, but is overall fairly intact. In 2007, at the age of 32, we’re now seeing that Tiger’s hairline appears to have shifted up. We can clearly now see more of his upper forehead, and that brings out some of the curvature that exists in that upper forehead, and he’s now lost some of the finer hairs of his hairline. And you can especially see that with the thinning of the widow’s peak as well as the rest of that central hairline. In 2008 at the age of 33, we’re now seeing additional temporal thinning that continues and there’s a near loss of that anterior peak of the temples. The temples are now starting to take on a straighter type of configuration rather than having that anterior peak projection. And that adds to the size of the forehead. It’s not just the recession that’s occurring going up and also on a diagonal. It’s also that lateral extent of the forehead that is now expanding due to the loss of that anterior temporal peak. And that is definitely something that people notice. They can’t always put their finger on it, but it’s that loss of the temples that creates the lateral expansion of the forehead and makes it look bigger. Also, Tiger’s crown loss is starting to be more visible. Especially when you look at someone’s hair from a profile view. When the crown is intact, there’s a nice rounded contour from the frontal scalp to the midscal going down into the occipital area. If the crown is filled, but when the crown starts to thin out and it starts to become a bit more deficient in hair, you’ll start to notice that there’s a flattening of that area. And so that can of course be seen from the posterior view, but from a profile view or a lateral view, you can very clearly see that contour change when people have a crown deficiency. In 2009, at the age of 34, I see no change. And in 2010, at the age of 35, I also see no change. In 2011, at the age of 36, Tiger is starting to experience even more forehead show as that hairline creeps up. And that of course will be highlighted even more when he’s exposed to bright light, especially the sun. And you can see that in this image. And that light penetration is often one of the biggest complaints I get from my patients who come in with a thinner frontal scalp. They’ll often be bothered by how much the light is penetrating towards further back on their scalp. In 2012 at the age of 37, what we see here is that Tiger’s hairline is looking a bit stronger. And when I look at the side of his scalp in that occipital parietal scalp, I’m seeing what could potentially be some signs of FUT scarring with some cross-hatching. When we close an incision, if there’s tension that builds up on the closure, the scar will sometimes have some vertical cross-hatching that it’s not necessarily just a straight line across with, remember the FUT type of surgery that was a strip type of removal. So instead of just that linear scar, you can sometimes get these kind of vertical extensions if too much tension is built up in the closure or sometimes if suture material or staples are used where they don’t dissolve as quickly and sometimes leave those marks. There’s of course an art to closing any incision and the same holds true for FUT incisions. And even though that’s fallen out of favor for men these days getting hair transplant surgery and most people are doing FUEE surgery, including us, there is still a time and a place for FUT surgery for both men and women in properly selected individuals. But I think that perhaps especially in 2012, this was not exactly prime time for FUEE. It was still at a time when FUT surgery was the predominant way to harvest hair from the back of the scalp. And I do see some indication of that possible scar line there. And I think that perhaps the hairline has improved. So he may have had a procedure around that time. And in 2013 at the age of 38, what we see here is that Tiger’s hairline is now overall a bit lower compared to how it was in the 6 or 7 years that preceded this. But we’re still seeing continued thinning of tiger’s hair in that whole DHT sensitive zone. In 2014, at the age of 39, you can see that from that profile view, part of that potential FUT scar is visible. in 2015 at the age of 40. What we’re seeing here is that Tiger’s frontal thinning progresses and possibly only his transplanted hair is what’s actually remaining in a good portion of that frontal scalp. And this again highlights the importance of proper prevention of further hair loss. or else surgical outcomes are not always that impressive years later if you didn’t take the right measures to properly secure your existing hair. And that’s one of the main reasons why I say no to people when they come in for surgery. It’s because their hair is not stable. You have to stabilize hair loss before you operate. Hair surgery should not be seen as like some emergency. It’s better to take your time, take the right steps to stabilize hair before we go in and operate. In 2016, at the age of 41, I see no change. In 2017, at the age of 42, we’re seeing here some progressive crown loss. And I think that the primary population of hair in the frontal area is actually the transplanted graphs. Remember that even after the age of 35, there’s still progressive loss of hair. It’s just usually occurring at a slower rate compared to men in their late 20s and early 30s. And for some people, that can lead to a still nearly bald appearance without any proper intervention. In 2018 at the age of 43, what we see in this side view of Tiger is that the FUT scarring to my eye appears more severe and that could suggest some general thinning in that donor zone with the progression of androgenetic alipcia, especially because some people tend to be diffuse thinners where even in the donor area there’s some loss of hair that occurs. Or it could mean that potentially he’s had some additional procedures that now has led to that FUT scar looking even more pronounced. As you go back through an initial FUT scar and say remove the scar and remove some additional hair to transplant again, you are now building up more and more tension in that closure as the scalp gets tighter. And as you do that, that scar can start to widen even more and create a less favorable scar. Remember that scalp laxity is limited. And the more tissue you remove, the tighter it gets. And you cannot just continue to do more and more and more FUT surgery. Eventually, there’s going to be a limit to how much you can actually remove. But most people can undergo usually between two and three FUT procedures safely without building up too much tension in the occipital area. And again here I think that most of the hair in the frontal scalp is the transplanted graphs not so much his original hair. And as far as graph count goes between the maybe two FUT surgeries that he had. I think perhaps this was a total of about I’m guessing here maybe 3,000 graphs to the frontal scalp and to part of the mids scalp, but I think that the crown was largely omitted when it came to grafting. It looks uh much more bare compared to even the frontal scalp and midscal. In 2019 at the age of 44, we see that his potential FUT procedures have allowed him to essentially have some semblance of a hairline still, especially in the right lighting and maybe with the use of, let’s say, topic powder for camouflage, he’s able to present as someone with a hairline with some framing of his face. And as far as hairline design goes, it looks like they selected a straighter type of appearance to Tiger’s hairline. In certain ethnicities, a straighter hairline is more acceptable. In other ethnicities, it’s better to create a bit more curvature to the hairline for naturality. But the key here, I think, is that they kept the hairline at a higher level and didn’t drop it down too much. And I think that’s super important because had the Neo hairline been placed too low, it would have created a very artificial appearance where you’d have hair at a level where it doesn’t typically exist in a low density type of format. Whereas by keeping Tiger’s hairline at that higher level, it’s made it difficult to even tell that perhaps this was a surgically kind of modified type of hairline. And um I think that was really good strategic planning on the part of his surgeon and him as well. Of course, he was a big part of this decision-making. And when you compare what I think is FUT scarring to how things looked with the indentation of just Tiger wearing his hat, I think you can appreciate a very distinct look of FUT scar compared to the indentation of a hat. In 2020 at the age of 45, notice that Tiger’s transplanted hair alone is not coming close to his original density. Part of that has to do with the limited supply that exists on the back and sides of the head that we use as our donor areas for the actual graphs that get moved to the new location. And just like with FUT surgery having limitations, FUEE surgery also has its limits. And as you start to cover more and more ground with the transplant with say a same number of graphs, you’re going to start to reduce your densities and when you’re doing the initial procedure with a lot of existing hairs in the area, you need to account for that hair. But if a lot of that hair starts to fade out and all you’re left with is transplanted hair, well then it will likely take on a thinner type of appearance and some people come back wanting more density, but again they’re going to continue to deplete that donor area. So that again highlights the importance of medical therapy. You want to secure what you have and then build on it with surgery if needed. In 2021 at the age of 46, I wanted to highlight here one of the issues with FUT surgery and one of the reasons why most men come in having zero interest in FUT. They just want to hear about FUEE. And the main reason is that you have these linear scars on the back of the scalp that can be a dead giveaway that some surgery was done. And one way to hide those scars at least partially is to grow the hair out longer in the back. But as the transplant, the hair here, like you can see in Tiger’s case, is quite thin. A better overall look for him might be one where he goes really short on the sides and the back and fades up into somewhat thicker hair, but he’s not really able to do that if he’s trying to grow his hair out longer in order to cover up some of the FUT scarring. And that again speaks to one of the main limitations of FUT surgery for men. In contrast with FUEE harvesting, when it’s done properly, you are able to keep the back and the sides very short and fade up into more hair. And many of my patients do just that. And it’s very difficult to perceive those FUEE scars when you have again properly distributed FUEE scarring and when the FUEE harvesting is performed well where the scars are not too big and heal well. Here’s a patient of mine who had over 2,000 graphs placed into partially his crown and partially his hairline. And you can see his donor area looking very healthy after a single procedure with the hair on the back of the scalp being extremely short. Those tiny little dot scars are really not too visible. In 2022, at the age of 47, it appears that most of Tiger’s transplanted hair was likely placed into the frontal scalp and mids scalp. Because when I look at the crown, it doesn’t look like it received much of a contribution of graphs. And it makes sense to prioritize aesthetically more critical zones like the front and the middle before you go into the crown. Now, in some people, the frontal scalp may have thinned, but it still looks intact. And if the crown is wide open, we might place the initial procedure of graphs into the crown. So it’s not always that the first hair transplant needs to go into the frontal region, but for many people that is the strategy that we take, unless of course the crown is the primary area of loss. In 2023 at the age of 48, we see that Tiger has more advanced thinning and likely he hasn’t been on a whole lot of medical therapy. And people get overwhelmed sometimes with all the different options that exist online for their hair. They’re constantly having things sold to them and marketed to them and they don’t know which way to turn, what’s actually going to work, what’s not going to work. And what I tell my patients is to stick to the tried andrue. We know that finasteride and minoxil have been around for many decades now and are overall very well tolerated at low dosages. It doesn’t mean that no one’s going to have a side effect. Of course, these are real medications with real potential side effects, and I talk about that in many of my videos. But those two medications are just so critical for men’s hair when they’re experiencing androgenetic alopecia. And again, to find those medications at affordable prices, make sure to check out feelconfident.com. Also, coming in the fall of 2025, we have our redesigned shampoo and conditioner bottles. So, we’ve had this on the market now for about a year. And while these are not a replacement for those triedand-true medications, they are welldesigned um with not just great formulations for natural compounds that will again help support those medications in preventing further loss of hair. Again, to a degree, these are cosmetic products. They are not prescription-based products, but you need to use something to shampoo your hair. you might as well use something that’s properly fortified with the right ingredients to help support your hair health. So, without further ado, let me show you our new bottles. So, we have here the thickening shampoo, and it has a nice pump. It has a soft touch feel. I’m very excited. It took us 9 months to come up with this design. And this is our conditioner here. So, it’s going to be the same great formulas in revamped packaging. So, I’m super excited to share those with you as soon as they’re available in the fall. So, to keep up with our latest products and drops, and to get more information about hair surgery, facial plastics, make sure you’re signed up for our newsletter. So, go to feelconfident.com and sign up for that newsletter for the latest info. Thank you so much for your support. You can also see that Tiger has diffused thinning not just in those recipient areas, but in his donor area as well. And that again brings out those FUT scars even more. When someone is younger, you don’t always know how that final horseshoe will look if they’re on the road to a Norwood 7 scenario where you just are left with that horseshoe of hair. Will that horseshoe be this tall? Will it be this tall? How thin will it be? Nobody knows. So when you get a hair transplant earlier in life, you really ought to be on specifically finasteride or dutastasteride to prevent further loss. So you don’t end up with a scenario like this where the back is super thin. You’ve now moved some graphs. Some have made it, some have not made it. You have scarring that is potentially more visible. It’s not the ideal scenario, but I think it still has given Tiger the ability to not appear bald because he has some of those hairs in the frontal zone remaining. In 2024 at the age of 49 I see no change. And in 2025 at the age of 49 I wanted to highlight here some options that Tiger has. One is of course he can just go as is. There is nothing wrong about how things look now. He can just continue to sport this look and that would be totally fine. Another option is of course to just shave the head and go bald. But again, with those FUT scars, it might not be his first choice because then people might ask, “Oh, what’s that scar?” And then, of course, it might seem more obvious that he had work done, which I think is totally cool to admit to, but of course, many people, especially celebrities, are a little bit more secretive about some of the work that they do. Another option is to get scalp micropigmentation or SMP into those FUT scars. We have a video on this topic, SMP, if you want to check it out, but it’s small dots of ink that are placed into the FUT scar to make it somewhat less visible. Another option is FUEE surgery into the FUT scar. And sometimes you can include SMP as well to further mask that strip scar. But sometimes it’s better to use the graphs that you have remaining for other portions of your scalp rather than sending them into the strip scar itself. Yet another potential option for Tiger is to do an FUEE surgery with some of the remaining graphs in the back of his scalp. Maybe about 2,000 GPHs invested into the frontal scalp to bolster up the density. But it’s important to carefully avoid that FUT scar when doing this type of transfer. And also it’s important to realize that as you do FUEE surgery around that strip scar, you will thin out the area and that FUT scar might become a bit more obvious, a bit more prominent. And that’s something that patients need to be aware of. You can see here one of my patients where we did just that. We did an FUEE procedure after he had two prior strip surgeries and he had that vertical cross-hatching that I was referencing earlier in this video. So, we had to avoid that entire area not to deplete it too much so that he would still have coverage of that FUT zone once he heals up from his FUEE procedure. Yet another option is SMP for the whole scalp more globally. Now, I think it always looks more natural when there’s SMP into an area that has hair. And the more hair that it has, I think the more natural the dots of SMP can blend. But of course, some people like the look of just SMP sort of everywhere and if it’s performed properly, again, you can get a nice result if that’s the look that you’re going for, that more two-dimensional look. But three-dimensional hair with the SMP, I think overall looks better than just SMP alone. And here you can see one of my patients where we actually took graphs from the back of the scalp to cover up some of the S&P that he had previously somewhere else where it left not the most natural appearance and we were able to create a much more natural look for him. So in summary, I think that Tiger Woods may have had two FUT hair transplant procedures. the first approximately around 2012 and the second around 2017 for a total of about 3,000 graphs to the frontal scalp and midscal. Do you agree with this analysis or do you have a different take on Tiger Woods’s hair evolution over the years? Make sure to comment below and let me know which celebrity I should cover next. Thanks for watching.

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Linkov Hair Surgery

00:00 – Intro
00:21 – 1994 (Age 19)
01:21 – 1995 (Age 20)
01:35 – 1996 (Age 21)
01:39 – 1997 (Age 22)
02:39 – 1998 (Age 23)
02:42 – 1999 (Age 24)
04:11 – 2000 (Age 25)
06:26 – 2001 (Age 26)
06:30 – 2002 (Age 27)
07:22 – 2003-2005 (Age 28-Age 30)
07:28 – 2006 (Age 31)
08:22 – 2007 (Age 32)
08:50 – 2008 (Age 33)
10:16 – 2009 (Age 34)
10:20 – 2010 (Age 35)
10:25 – 2011 (Age 36)
10:57 – 2012 (Age 37)
12:39 – 2013 (Age 38)
12:58 – 2014 (Age 39)
13:06 – 2015 (Age 40)
14:01 – 2016 (Age 41)
14:07 – 2017 (Age 42)
14:40 – 2018 (Age 43)
16:31 – 2019 (Age 44)
18:11 – 2020 (Age 45)
19:19 – 2021 (Age 46)
20:58 – 2022 (Age 47)
21:43 – 2023 (Age 48)
24:57 – 2024 (Age 49)
25:02 – 2025 (Turning Age 50)
28:25 – Takeaways

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