Cheerful Tiger is finally ready to roar again
BEING in the Bahamas will generally promote a sense of wellbeing, but few could have felt quite so chipper yesterday as the world’s 1,199th-ranked golfer, Tiger Woods. ‘I’m loving life now,’ he said. If you feel like you have been here before at the start of a Tiger comeback, then, yes, you have. For this is his tenth.
If you feel like you have heard it all before, it is true that, last February, he was telling us he was pain-free when the reality was he could barely walk.
But, as he prepares for this latest attempt to resurrect his gilded career at his own exhibition event, the Hero World Challenge, there are grounds for guarded optimism this one will last rather longer than many of those in the past.
For a start, there are the thoughts of world No 1 Dustin Johnson. He played with Woods last January and again last week in a friendly fourball.
‘Oh, man, this is a completely different Tiger,’ he said.
Even Woods cannot believe the difference the fusion surgery on his back last April has made.
‘This surgery was about quality of life because I didn’t really have much,’ he said.
‘I’ve been in bed for about two years and haven’t been able to do much.
‘The neatest thing for me is to be able to get out of bed and I can grab a club and not use it as a crutch.
‘This is very different because, last year, I was still struggling with the pain.
‘I was able to hit some good shots, but, looking back on it, I look like I was playing in slo-mo.
‘I didn’t realise how bad my back had become because it’s been a slow, degrading process.
‘I’m winging this because I don’t know what my body can and can’t do yet.
‘I don’t have any pain any more in my back, but I do have some stiffness.
‘I was talking to my surgeon about how long will this fused back hold up, but he said: “You’ll be fine for the rest of your life. It’s bone and bone. You’re fine”.
‘How hard is it to break a leg? It’s not easy and it’s not easy to break that part of your back.
‘It’s still trying to sink in that I can start doing things like that, being more athletic. There is still some apprehension going forward, no doubt. This week is a big step for me.’
Asked whether he can be as good as he was in his prime, Woods chuckled and said: ‘I don’t know.
‘I was pretty good, wasn’t I? I know a lot of the young guys have only seen my highlights on YouTube.
‘I would like them to feel what some of the past guys had to go against all those years.’
Only when the subject turned to the night last May when he was found in his Mercedes by the side of a Florida highway, clearly under the influence of a cocktail of painkillers, did he clam up.
Asked if he had watched the video released by police of him struggling to walk, he responded: ‘No’ — and was unwilling to elaborate. Six months on, the transformation is remarkable.
And so, like every comeback before, we will sit through this one with fingers crossed, hoping this is the one that ultimately leads to one more blessed display of greatness.