Tiger Woods: Don’t get your hopes up in return at Hero World Challenge
The entire golf world will be focused on Tiger Woods’s return at the Hero World Challenge, but don’t let your expectations get too far from reality.
In less than two weeks, Tiger Woods is making his return at the Hero World Challenge. It’s exciting, sure, but if this time feels different to you, there’s a simple explanation.
You know that Tiger Woods isn’t what he used to be. And regardless of how well he does or doesn’t play in Albany, things really won’t show until February, or even April.
In the land of hot takes and click bait, this doesn’t even rank anymore, but that’s the most telling aspect of this final chapter of Woods’s story. We’ve seen this story several times before, most recently one year ago. The 14-time major winner is at a crossroads, between the competitive fire that surely burns as hot as ever, and a body that – for all outward appearances – simply isn’t holding up to his extreme level of expectations.
That’s not a knock on Woods. Far from it, in fact. Even if you find yourself leaning away from the Tiger-mania that captivated so many in the late 1990’s and the entire first decade of the 2000’s, he still has the undeniable draw that ranks him with the likes of Nelson, Palmer, Player and Nicklaus. He’s a living legend, and we’d all prefer the story end with one last fist pump, instead of the grimace of yet another injury.
We’ll all be watching on November 30th, when Woods takes his first competitive tee shot in nine months. But we did the same thing last year, when Woods finished the Hero World Challenge dead last, 18th out of 18.
Tiger Woods must embrace his “new normal”, whatever that becomes.
The reality is that for Woods, there’s going to be a new normal, but we don’t know what that is just yet. Even fully healthy, can he compete with the likes of Jordan Spieth, Dustin Johnson and Justin Thomas? Phil Mickelson has mostly held on to his game, but he also doesn’t have the encyclopedia of medical procedures that Tiger has endured over the last decade.
Woods’s former coach, Hank Haney, said that he thinks Tiger can win with his (again) revamped swing. That analysis was based on just a couple of Twitter videos, but it is reassuring. Perhaps he does find a way to win the Hero World Challenge; he has done it five times before, after all.
Or perhaps he finishes dead last again, healthy and simply happy to be back between the ropes. At the end of the day, the Hero is going to be little more than a dress rehearsal. Woods will be testing his game primarily against himself, then against the field.
Temper your expectations. Save your excitement for the first full week of April, because that’s when we’ll really have the answer to the questions that linger on today.