Tiger returns with the same belief he can win

Tiger Woods feels good enough to play at Riviera, his first tournament with a cut and without a cart since the British Open last July. He already is looking ahead to the Masters. And yes, he thinks he can win.

“I would not have put myself out here if I didn’t think I could beat these guys,” Woods said ahead of the Genesis Invitational, which has attracted 19 of the world’s top 20 players.

He also is well aware that he has not won since October 2019, and that at age 47 and with more surgeries than major titles (15), time is running out. He knows that. He’s just not quite ready to accept it.

He marvels at how long Tom Brady lasted. He remembers when John Elway retired from the Broncos because his body could no longer recover the way it once did. Golf is not a contact sport, but it has become a young man’s game. Only two of the top 10 players are in their 30s. The oldest is Rory McIlroy at 33.

Woods can play. The question is whether he can compete, whether he can win. He remains at 82 career PGA Tour titles, a record he shares with Sam Snead, who was 67 when he made the cut at a PGA Championship.

Part of Woods was annoyed that he was celebrated for making the cut in the Masters last year, his first competition since a February

2021 car crash outside Los Angeles shattered bones in his right leg and ankle.

“I’m there to get a W, OK? So I don’t understand that making the cut is a great thing,” Woods said. “If I entered the event, it’s always to get a W. There will come a point in time when my body will not allow me to do that anymore, and it’s probably sooner rather than later. But wrapping my ahead around that transition and being the ambassador role and just trying to be out here with the guys, no, that’s not in my DNA.”

He played that ambassador role last year at the Genesis Invitational as the tournament host. He also is leading the private player meetings geared toward building a new PGA Tour model of elite tournaments as a response to Saudi-funded LIV Golf.

His announcement Friday that he was playing led to a scramble for media credentials. The back of the press room in the Riviera clubhouse was lined with some two dozen photographers waiting for him to show up for his news conference.

Justin Rose watched in December as Woods played with his son at the PNC Championship, riding in a cart. Woods has been saying he can hit all the shots, that it’s walking to them that makes it difficult.

“In terms of the important part of can you hit a golf ball, can you get a ball in the hole, all of that seemed to be really in order,” Rose said.