Woods continues comeback heroics in Bahamas

WHEN Tiger Woods said on the eve of his comeback he hoped to show the current elite what all the fuss was about in his prime, did anyone in their right mind think he would give them a glimpse this weekend? It is barely possible to comprehend what we are seeing in the Bahamas, where he is certainly putting the hero into the Hero World Challenge. As if a 69 for openers was not startling enough, what happened over the front nine yesterday was truly astonishing. Let us remind ourselves that the 18-man field contains eight members of the current world top ten, including the top three — Dustin Johnson, Jordan Spieth, and Justin Thomas — and yet after 27 holes they were all looking up at the man ranked 1,199th, who hadn’t had a scorecard in his hand before Thursday’s first round for 301 days. Yet millions of golfers around the world watching on television must have been looking at the top right-hand corner of the screen wondering whether the icon revealing the action to be ‘live’ would change to ‘replay’— from, say, 2005 — at any minute. You would like to say his driving was as good as it was in his prime — except, for two days, it has been better. The swing speed is right up there where it needs to be to take on the likes of Johnson and Thomas next year and, right now, so is the accuracy. Take the par-five 9th, measuring over 600 yards, which the American had bogeyed on Thursday after a duffed chip. This time, a bullet drive that took on the water on the right before sliding back towards the middle of the fairway was followed by a three wood that pitched on the green and finished 20ft from the hole. When he rolled that one in for an eagle, he had gone out in just 31 shots and had the outright lead on nine under. How on earth do you do that at nearly 42-years-old and after four back operations in 18 months? At least on the back nine there was some semblance of what we had been expecting, as he came home in a prosaic 37 shots. Still, 69, 68 was way ahead of the anticipated curve and left him in the mix for the final two rounds. Looking fit and healthy, he was tied third when he finished, looking up at only Charley Hoffman and Spieth, out on the course. What a weekend in prospect.