With fans cheering, he will tee it up at Arnold Palmer’s tourney for the 1st time since 2013 Tiger Woods’ comeback trail leads to Bay Hill
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Tony Andrulonis awoke well before sunrise and soon began the short walk from his Palm Beach Gardens home to the first tee box at PGA National Golf Club.
The 48-year-old had waited a long time for this moment. He wanted to be ready.
Tiger Woods was playing in Wednesday’s Pro-Am at the Honda Classic and Andrulonis did not want to miss a shot.
“I got up at 5 so I could be 100 percent,” Andrulonis said. “It was well worth it.”
Woods has been worth the price of admission since his return to competition following major back surgery last April.
Woods long has been the game’s main attraction. But the rare times he competed in recent years, he was a shell of the player who dominated golf for more than a decade.
After four back surgeries and nearly as many failed comeback attempts, Woods looks increasingly like the Tiger of old.
Woods enters today’s final round of the Valspar Championship outside Tampa one shot out of the lead. He then will tee it up this week at Bay Hill Club and Lodge for the first time since 2013 looking to add to his record eight wins in the late Arnold Palmer’s tournament.
Androlunis was at Bay Hill during the final round of Woods’ 2012 win, his first PGA Tour victory since a 2009 sex scandal began one of the most stunning downfalls in sports.
In 2014, Androlunis watched Woods walk off the course during the final round with back spasms, beginning the precipitous decline of his health and his golf game.
Last month at PGA National, Andrulonis saw enough positive signs to convince him this latest comeback has legs.
“The next four or five years could be fun,” Andrulonis said. “I’m pretty optimistic right now.”
During his four starts since late January, Woods has showcased the club head speed, creativity and competitive fire he used to capture 79 PGA Tour wins, including 14 major championships.
Woods stormed to the top of the leaderboard Friday at the Innisbrook course near Tampa to enter the weekend mix and send a jolt of energy through the world of golf.
But whether Woods wins or loses, everyone will be watching.
In a sport filled with young stars like Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas and freakish talents like Dustin Johnson and Rory McIlroy, a 42-year-old with a bad back and skeletons long out in his closet remains golf ’s hottest ticket.
Thomas, 24 and the PGA Tour’s reigning Player of the Year, turned professional in 2013, the year of Woods’ last win. Living in Jupiter, Thomas has become friends with Woods during the past year but did not get his first taste of Tigermania until last month at Riviera Country Club.
The Woods-ThomasMcIlroy grouping drew
such a massive, and at times unruly, throng, Thomas had a fan ousted and later complained about the crowd’s behavior. To start the third round, Thomas quickly realized noise would not be an issue when he and McIlroy were paired again.
“Those first two days there’s so many people, and then Saturday morning there was nobody,” Thomas recalled with a laugh. “We got there and Rory and I were walking up to the tee, we’re like, ‘Where is everybody? Like, does he really bring that many people?’”
Woods’ drawing power remains undeniable.
Ticket sales for the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines rose around 40 percent while the ratings for the Honda Classic were up more than 43 percent and the highest since 2012 when Woods shot a closing 62 to lose to McIlroy by two shots.
Bay Hill has seen a similar spike in interest with Woods in the 120-player field.
“He represents a much larger universe,” Honda Classic tournament director Ken Kennerly said. “When you get Tiger, it adds that whole other level. Now people haven’t seen him in awhile. … In those four years, there’s a whole cadre of new golf fans who are like, ‘I want to see Tiger.’ ”
Woods’ immense popularity and constant scrutiny are a product of the times. Both his athletic dominance and fall from grace were custom-made for the age of reality TV and social media.
Whenever Woods tees it up, there is no telling who will show up to watch.
“It’s a zoo every time he plays,” two-time Bay Hill winner Matt Every said. “He’s got every golf fan out there, and then he has people who just want to come to see him and know nothing about golf.”
Lately, Woods has been able to keep the conversation focused on his game.
Woods is pain-free and at peace on the course for the first time in years.
“I am a lot happier,” he said. “I’ve been struggling for quite from time, probably just near five years now. So it was a long period of time where I was really struggling.”
Woods’ struggles finally seem behind him. In the process, he has silenced even his most-vocal critics.
Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee is a former PGA Tour pro and student of the golf swing who questioned Woods even when he won five times in 2013. Chamblee likes what he sees from Woods now — and believes the best of this comeback is yet to come.
“Tiger Woods is playing better than I ever thought I’d see him play again,” Chamblee said. “It’s probably a tie between his club head speed and his ability to get the ball up and down again. I’m not sure which one surprised me the most, but he’s a threat again.”
All along, Woods’ fans kept the faith, even as he grappled with surgeries, swing changes, self doubt and scandal, including a DUI arrest last May after he took too many painkillers.
Alone, any of those obstacles could have derailed Woods for good. Yet he seems to have emerged stronger for it all.
“Honestly, when everything happened with his wife if he had just come out and said, you know what, this is the lifestyle I like to live and I want to be a baller, because I am, his game never would have broke,” said 33-year-old Nicholas James Eddy of Delray Beach. “His game’s back because he has his swagger. You can see it just in his walk.”
Even so, Woods has lost a step or two from his heyday. No golfer can match his 11-year stretch from 1999 to 2009 when he won 13 majors and at least five tournaments in all but two seasons. Once unbeatable, Woods is now the underdog. The infamous intimidation factor has faded and another injury could mark the end of his career.
But the chance Woods would rekindle some of his magic inspired 73-year-old Pete Butler to make the trip from the golf mecca Pinehurst, N.C., to the Honda Classic.
“He can do the impossible and has done the impossible,” Butler said.
At PGA National, Woods tied for 12th place but was a couple of miscues from the 36-hole lead and a pair of ill-timed swings Sunday from getting in the mix.
Given Woods’ play in Tampa, where he held the lead Friday, Win No. 80 suddenly seems possible.
“I don’t think he’s all the way there and all the way back,” said Golf Channel analyst David Duval, a former world No. 1 and Woods’ contemporary. “He’s certainly getting awful close awful quickly.”
Few places have brought out the best in Woods like Bay Hill.
The 72nd hole at Palmer’s home course was the sight of some of Woods’ most memorable moments, including long, winning birdie putts in 2008 and 2009.
It was at the time when the injuries came in rapid succession and Woods’ scandal introduced elements of tragedy into a storybook career. A decade later, Woods’ story remains as compelling as ever, maybe more.
“It’s a drama that’s given me a lot of excitement in my life,” said Andrulonis, who witnessed Woods, then a 20-year-old phenom, win the 1996 Walt Disney World Classic for his second PGA Tour win. “Whether people are pulling for him or against him, they want to see how the drama ends. “This is the next chapter.” Standing along the ropes at the 18th tee box of PGA National, a trio of millennials sipping beers in the South Florida sunshine were spellbound by Woods’ every move.
Daniel Rush, 29, said he grew up watching the rise and fall of Woods. To see him back back in the winner’s circle one day would turn back the clock for both of them — and millions more.
“It’d be very meaningful,” Rush said. “I think he can do it. As long as Tiger’s on the course, it’s always the what if. What if he can do this?
“That’s what’s mesmerizing. That’s the draw about it.”