Tiger’s comeback will run into harsh reality
AUGUSTA, Ga. — The return of Tiger Woods has added a lot of hype to the 2018 Masters, which begins Thursday at Augusta National. But it says here he won’t complete a miraculous comeback from back surgery by actually winning the tournament. That is too much to ask.
Woods might be one of the betting favorites to win his fifth green jacket, but that has more to do with reputation than reality. The golf world has been swept up in the excitement of Woods’ return to form after two injury-riddled years. His comeback has energized the industry and led to heroic expectations. Still, there are more factors that suggest Woods won’t win the Masters than those pointing to a victory.
First, let’s give credit to Woods for getting to this point. A year ago, he couldn’t sit still because of the pain in his back. Now he’s playing at a world-class level, having finished in the top-five of his past two PGA tournaments. He says he’s pain-free and ready to challenge the young guns who have carried golf in his absence. But he won’t be wearing the green jacket come Sunday. Tiger Woods isn’t the Bionic Man.
This will be just his sixth tournament since his lower-back fusion surgery and his first Masters in three years. To think Woods can go from the operating table to a green jacket in less than a year would be remarkable, but it’s unlikely given his time away from the game. His mental and physical conditioning will be tested by the demands of playing four rounds at Augusta National. It also doesn’t help that he’s 42.
Despite the rhetoric, Woods isn’t playing well enough to win here. He’ll need to use his driver at Augusta National, and his accuracy off the tee this year is 51.61 percent, which ranks a distant 201st on the PGA Tour. His iron play also hasn’t been as solid as it needs to be. Woods has reached 61.42 percent of his greens in regulation. He has never won the Masters without reaching at least 75 percent of the greens in regulation. Put simply, Woods will have to play far better than he has been playing to win this weekend. He thinks he can.
“All those years that I’ve won, one part of my game has certainly stood out,” said Woods, a Masters winner in 1997, 2001, 2002 and 2005. “Whether it’s driving the ball like I did in ’97 and putting it a couple years where I really putted well or hitting my irons and hitting a lot of greens, there’s got to be some part of my game that’s got to be on and hopefully this will be one of those weeks.”
The main reason Woods won’t win this weekend is there are too many players better than he is right now. If this is the most anticipated Masters ever it’s not just because of Woods. It’s because his competition is a proven group of younger, hungrier players looking to become the new king of golf.
Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Bubba Watson, Justin Rose and Jason Day are all major champions in the prime of their careers. Others like Paul Casey, Jon Rahm and Rickie Fowler are looking for their major moment. They’re not intimidated by Woods and have embraced his return as a chance to create their own legacies.
“I want and I don’t want him to get back to the level he was when he was playing great,” Rahm said of Woods. “I want him to because it would be great to see it again. I don’t want him to because he will be winning 30 percent of the tournaments he plays, which gives a lot less room for the rest of us to win.”
The pick here is Rose will win. I wouldn’t be surprised if Thomas, Johnson or Spieth won, either. If Woods manages to win, then maybe he really is the Bionic Man.