By Rahul Banerji
Watching Tiger Woods make his way to the final green to seal an 80th PGA Tour title, there was a twinge of sympathy for the committee members of the East Lake Golf Club.
As the crowd, described by one golf writer as a “tribal procession” fought and scrambled for cellphone camera shots and vantage positions, the course was taking a beating.
Marshals were brushed aside in the surge as fairway, bunker and green were swallowed up by the human tide. Everyone there wanted to be in on the occasion. Tiger’s dream comeback win.
Gone was the gentility of an everyday golf course routine. Course etiquette was thrown aside. This was raw draw power at work. A born-again superstar whose final climb to redemption no one was going to miss out on.
Numbers game
The numbers will define Tiger’s history, quite possibly a watershed moment for the modern era’s greatest golfer.
A world ranking of 1,199 at the start of the season. A gap of 1,876 days since his last tour title. Ten years since his previous major win.
That became irrelevant on a sunny Sunday afternoon in Atlanta.
This will not rank as the greatest return on golf. Ben Hogan survived far worse in a horrific crash in 1949 but came back to win a further six majors. Jack Nicklaus had to wait for six years for his 18th and last major. There are other stories too.
But this is about Tiger Woods. The man who made two generations of golfers very, very rich by giving the sport a profile no one had earlier. And he looked as good as he had ever done on his way to title number 80.
All this was set aside as Woods spoke about his journey back to a professional career again.
Long road
“It means a lot more to me now in the sense I didn’t know if I’d ever be out here again playing, doing this again,” he said.
“I don’t know, 20 years ago, hell, I thought I was going to play for another 30 years. That’s just the way golf is. You can play until you’re 70 years old.
“Then, there was a point in time I didn’t know if I’d ever do this again. So yes, I appreciate it a little bit more than I did because I don’t take it for granted that I’m going to have another decade, two decades in my future of playing golf at this level.
“I’ve been sitting on 79 for about five years now and to get 80 is a pretty damned good feeling,” Woods said. “Just to be able to compete and play again this year, that’s a hell of a comeback.
“Some of the people very close to me, they’ve seen what I’ve gone through. Some of the players have seen what I’ve gone through, and they know how hard it was just to get back to playing golf again, forget the elite level.
Capping the comeback
“Just be able to play golf again and enjoy being with my kids and living that life. And then lo and behold, I’m able to do this and win a golf tournament.
“Probably the low point was in not knowing if I’d ever be able to live pain-free again. Am I going to be able to sit, stand, walk, lay down without feeling the pain that I was in?
“I just didn’t want to live that way. This is how the rest of my life is going to be? It’s going to be a tough rest of my life. And so I was beyond playing.
“I couldn’t sit. I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t lay down without feeling the pain in my back and my leg.
“That was a pretty low point for a very long time.”
From there, and on to the Ryder Cup in a week, is a very long way back indeed.
FedEx Cup winner on Sunday, Justin Rose, put another perspective on it.
Soon after claiming the $10 million payout, the in-form Englishman said, “I think that we’ve all been waiting for him to win, and we’ve all been wanting him to win.
“I think it’s great for the sport, great for the game. He truly moves the needle like no one else out here, and he wins in style. He wins with charisma. He’s brilliant to watch.”
A brief recap of Tiger’s season courtesy CBS Sports (with one addition):
- April 20, 2017: Woods has spinal fusion on back, his fourth back surgery.
- Aug. 31, 2017: Woods gets the OK to start chipping again.
- Oct. 7, 2017: Woods tweets a video of himself hitting irons.
- Oct. 15, 2017: Woods tweets a video of himself hitting drivers.
- December 2017: Woods plays in the Hero World Challenge.
- January 2018: Woods plays in the Farmers Insurance Open and shoots 72 in Round 1.
- March 2018: Woods posts first top 10 of the year at Valspar Championship.
- July 2018: Woods posts first top 10 at a major at The Open.
- September 2018: Woods claims first title in five years.
Also read: Hero MotoCorp extends sponsorship of Tiger Woods’ World Challenge
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Great writing, Bunty. Enjoyed it very much particularly as it was about the Tiger! So glad that he won.
Lovely read. It highlights the technical aspects, the human aspects and the data, all in an easy read that really ‘takes you there’s. Cheers!
A lot of people must have enjoyed the write up on Tiger Woods.
A great comeback indeed. The other day we seen the return of Novak Djokovic in tennis. In 2016 at Rio we have witnessed the great Michael Phelps adding to his medal tally. But nobody can bring such enthusiasm to the game of golf like Tiger does. Yes it was like some rally in the Maidan in the CPM era instead of the red flags we have seen red T shirt.