File photo of Tiger Woods. Image courtesy of tigerwoods.com.
By Rahul Banerji
Three years ago, Tiger Woods wasn’t even sure of he would ever swing a golf club again. On Sunday in Missouri, he came within sniffing distance of his 15th major.
I was among a group of Indian journalists invited to the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas and remember walking away that day with the feeling we would not see Tiger back in title contention again. He was in obvious distress and the pain showed on his face.
Yet he was not ready to go away. ““There’s still some way to go before I can feel fully comfortable and I am not as filled up as I would like to be but that will take some time,” he said that day.
Three years of pain and a back-fusing surgery later, Tiger Woods is back and roaring. As are the fans. At times at Bellerive on Sunday, it looked like a moving circus as he and Gary Woodland made their way around the course. The noise and the energy was just incredible.
And after it was all over, two strokes shy of winner Brooks Koepka, Woods was rueful. “This one I never quite got to the lead. I was always trailing. It was a golf course in which I couldn’t sit still and make pars and be OK with it.
“I had to keep making birdies. … You could see guys shooting 5, 6 under par today, and with a bunch of guys around 8 under or better starting the day, I had to go get it and I tried.”
In his front nine, Tiger Woods missed every fairway. In all, he hit just five of 18. Yet he still returned his career best final round of 64 in a major that had 10 birdies and two bogeys. It was his first top 10 finish at the PGA Championship in nine years and some months.
He will now have to wait eight months for his next tilt at a major, but it will be worth the wait.
Viraj Madappa with his trophy at the KGA in Bangalore on Sunday. Image courtesy PGTI.
Maiden title
Also on Sunday and a few thousand miles away, Viraj Madappa emerged as the latest star on the Indian golfing horizon with a maiden Asian Tour title in his rookie year. The 20-year-old won the $350,000 TAKE Solutions Masters in Bangalore by two shots after being two off the lead after the third day with a four-day total of 16-under-268.
The Kolkata youngster thus became the youngest Indian to win an international event ahead of Gaganjeet Bhullar who had won the Asian Tour’s 2009 Indonesia President Invitational at the age of 21 years and three months. He is only the third Indian rookie to win on the Asian Tour after Shiv Kapur (2005) and Rashid Khan (2014).
Also Read: Indian Teenager Hitaashee Bakshi wins at Hong Kong Golf
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The year seen return of Novak Djokovic and Rafa, we are waiting see Tiger back to his winning days. Tiger only needs to find more fairways with his driver, his iron shots from the roughs and bunkers are still a sight to behold.
Tiger surely had some incredible recoveries throughout that final round on Sunday, including one hooked shot from around a bunch of trees that stopped 10 feet from the pin. Major number 15 cannot be too far away now Barua saab.