Must-see Masters with Woods back among best

This Masters is as much about a red shirt as a green jacket.

Tiger Woods is back for only the second time in the last five years, and what makes the sight of him at Augusta National even more tantalizing is that Woods is starting to look like the player who dominated golf for nearly 15 years.

He has power. His short game is sharp. He makes putts.

Never mind that Woods is not ranked among the top 100 players. Or that it has been 13 years since he last won the Masters in that Sunday red shirt, and four years and eight months since he last won any tournament.

The buzz following Woods since his return from a fourth back surgery has been bigger and louder than when he was No. 1 in the world, piling up 79 victories on the PGA Tour and 14 majors. The longer he was away from the game, the more his feats looked even more legendary. And the longer he was gone, the more plausible it was that Woods might never return, at least not at a competitive level.

In his last three starts leading to the Masters, Woods was within one shot of the lead at some point

in the final round. His only close call was the Valspar Championship, when he was a 40-foot birdie putt away on the 18th hole from forcing a playoff.

That prompted Jason Day to say, “For him to come back and win ... I don’t think it’s going to be a huge surprise now.”

As much as golf has missed the energy he brings to a tournament, Woods has missed golf, especially that first full week in April.

He has been to Augusta National each of the last two years for the Champions Dinners. Just like always, Woods walked up the stairs to the locker room reserved for Masters champions. But there were no clubs. No boxes of golf balls. No need to register. No tee time.

“Very frustrating,” Woods said. “Because I love playing Augusta National. I love it. And I know how to play it. Sometimes I don’t play it well, but I know how to play it. Me being out there on those greens and hitting putts and being creative, there’s no other golf course like it in the world and there’s no other golf tournament like it.

“It is literally ... it’s a players’ heaven.”

Can he win? It seems like such an absurd thought considering where Woods was even a year ago.

He told Jack Nicklaus at the Champions Dinner last year how much he was hurting, and Nick Faldo was struck by the negative tone. Woods had fusion surgery on his lower back two weeks later. Then, in another low moment, he was arrested in the early hours of Memorial Day on a DUI charge when Florida police found him asleep behind the wheel of his car.

The image of Woods pumping his fist in that red shirt was replaced by the sunken eyes of his mug shot. Woods attributed it to a bad combination of prescription drugs and sought treatment.