TIGER CALLS RETURN ‘CRAZY,’ AND HE’S RIGHT
Masters contender status is amazing
AUGUSTA, Ga. – You say the words “Tiger Woods is back,” and you immediately have to stop yourself. Is this true? How can this be?
Bedridden and in constant pain just a year ago, Woods underwent his fourth back surgery in less than three years — this one spinal fusion that removed a large portion of a degenerated disk — on April 20, 2017.
Five weeks later, over Memorial Day weekend, he was having his mug shot taken after being arrested on a DUI charge when he was found asleep at the wheel of his running car along the side of the road in Jupiter, Fla. The police dash cam video was difficult to watch; Woods looked to be a man completely undone. Toxicology results found that he had five different drugs in his system.
Now here we are at the 2018 Masters, and the 42-year-old Woods is being seriously discussed as one of the favorites to win his first major title in nearly 10 years.
What?!
If you’re surprised by this development, you’re not alone. I was in a press conference Tuesday afternoon with a guy who thinks this is crazy.
“I’ll be honest with you, it is crazy.” That was Tiger Woods talking. “I thought prior to the fusion surgery that that’s pretty much it,” he said. “I’ll have a nice, comfortable and great life, but I’ll never be able to swing the club like I used to speed-wise — just there’s no way (after) lower back fusion.
“But for some reason, I don’t have any pain. Yes, I’m much tighter, but I don’t have any pain. And I’ve had to really work on the strength. For some reason, it’s come back. I wish I could tell you, I wish I knew, but all of a sudden, I have this pop and my body and my speed’s back.”
Woods, who said he hasn’t felt this good in seven or eight years, has come back with a vengeance the past four
months, playing in six events and finishing tied for second at the Valspar Championship, then getting to within one shot of the lead on the back nine of the Arnold Palmer Invitational a week later.
He has taken to calling this development a “walking miracle,” at least of the sports variety, and who can argue? Even if you once despised him, if you’re not now openly rooting for him, you at least have to marvel at what’s going on here. Were he to win this Masters — which still is unlikely, considering the competitive strength of men’s golf these days — it would rank as one of the greatest comebacks in sports history.
How could it not? Woods hasn’t played in a major since August 2015, when he missed the cut at the PGA Championship. He hasn’t played on a weekend at a major in three full years, since he finished tied for 17th at the 2015 Masters, one of only two cuts he has made in majors since 2014 — basically the entirety of young Jordan Spieth’s career. Out of those 16 majors, Woods missed 10 of them entirely due to health problems and missed the cut in four others. The last time he won any kind of tournament, anywhere in the world, was the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational in August 2013.
“It’s been a tough road … the pain of just sitting there and the amount of times that I’ve fallen because my leg didn’t work or I just had to lay on the ground for extended periods of times. Those are some really dark, dark times.”
Of all the descriptions that have been attached to Woods over the years, “sympathetic” was never one of them. But his overbearing brashness has now disappeared, replaced by something bordering on humility. The chastening that occurred first with his personal scandal and now with his physical problems actually wears well on him.
Tiger Woods might well be back, but he is no longer invincible, which makes him so much more interesting.