Tiger is back. I don't say this lightly, nor do I make this statement without sincere consideration, but all the evidence points to Tiger being back. After suffering a car accident in February that was almost fatal and left doctors questioning whether the legendary golfer would ever walk again, Woods has announced that he will be playing in the PNC Championship December 18-19 with his son Charlie. I am not talking about Tiger coming back for a tournament. I am talking about him being in the running for the big ones, or at least being on his way there.
Despite his protests that he is not the player he used to be, Tiger Woods is able to swing a golf club and is walking again. No one in golf right now is the player that he used to be. He is no longer able to play like he was two decades ago, but he is also Tiger Woods. One day, that obsession with being the best doesn't just go away, it goes on and on. It is what made him great, and it will bring him back. I think it will be hard for him to come back off once he is back on the course.
He can call it a hit and giggle event, but there is no giggling for Tiger when he is on the green. I don't think there's a retirement plan for Tiger until he has no other options, and I think we should have known better. It is Tiger. The limit may not exist.
He said in an interview with Golf Digest that he won't be playing the full tour again because of his leg, but that he's had multiple back surgeries and struggles with addiction, and that he's aged. Hogan was almost killed in a head-on collision with a bus in 1949 that left him with multiple broken bones and the doctors feared he would be paralyzed. It did not. Hogan won the U.S. Open the following year.
It was a different time and Hogan didn't have Tiger's medical history, but it's possible. Anyone who watched this year's documentary could tell that Tiger wants it more than anyone. He will find a way if he wants it. I have no doubt that he will return to the majors within the next two years. He acknowledges in the Golf Digest interview that he still has a lot of muscle and nerve development ahead of him, but he is taking it easy. He will get better. For God's sake, it's Tiger Woods.
Even though he has made mistakes, golf is still the same without him; no one wants to go back to the pre-Tiger years. Neither does he. He will climb Mount Everest again, and I am looking forward to seeing how Charlie Woods does in a few years. His son may step up to the plate at that point in time. We would be foolish to underestimate him. He has had physical injuries, public scandals, and emotional distress, but could anyone else do it? I haven't seen someone who can. The impossible is possible time and time again with him. He and Charlie will play 36 holes together.
