Tiger Woods is planning to play in the Masters. It’s like Christmas, and we found out Santa Claus was real

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This article was published 05/04/2022 (1644 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Tiger Woods is arguably the greatest golfer of all time. Probably the most talented. Easily the most influential.

He is also, undisputedly, the game’s slyest liar.

Throughout his career — his magnificent, mesmerizing, Hall of Fame career — Woods has been something of a politician outside the ropes, carefully managing his message in press conferences and scrums. He has offered boring stump speeches for “process” and “reps” while evading inquiries not to his liking. There have been few direct answers and oh so many clichés.

“It is what it is,” except often what he said wasn’t.

So nobody should have fallen for his ultimate undersells in December at the PNC Championship, where he returned to play with his son, and in February at the Genesis Invitational, the PGA Tour tournament he hosts in Los Angeles. He was asked on both occasions about a possible return date, with Jim Nantz pressing him specifically about the Masters on the Genesis broadcast.

Woods seemed steadfast in his responses. He said everyone was getting way ahead of themselves. He said riding in a cart during an exhibition was a long way from walking 72 holes of tournament golf. He said he would play competitively again — on a limited basis — but he had no idea when. He made an April return sound implausible.

It was such a con. Tiger Woods is playing the Masters, everybody. This is like Christmas if we found out Santa Claus was real.

“As of right now, I feel like I am going to play,” Woods said Tuesday after two days of practice at Augusta National that had everyone drooling for such a statement.

Woods is no stranger to comebacks. His plethora of injuries and indiscretions over the years have limited him to 138 PGA Tour tournaments since 2008, an average of nine per year. Dustin Johnson, not exactly a workhorse, has played 300 in that time. Woods is also accustomed to making long-awaited returns at Augusta National. The 2010 Masters was his first tournament after he infamously became fodder for tabloids following revelations of his infidelity the previous November. He tied for fourth. The 2015 Masters was his first tournament in two months and came after he withdrew from the Farmers Insurance Open because his “glutes weren’t firing,” an explanation that was considered a coverup for the chipping yips he had then. He tied for 17th.

This is not like those, however. This is monumental. He is coming back to the game 14 months after a horrific car crash that could have taken his life and nearly took his right leg. It was left shattered by the wreck and now has “rods and plates and screws” in it. The Masters course is as difficult to walk as any on the men’s schedule — but one Woods knows well enough to play blindfolded — which was the reason many believed this would never happen.

It is also a return that is entirely about his physical readiness and endurance. The focus in 2010 was on him being in the public eye again after the embarrassment of his sex scandal. In 2015 it was about exorcising short-game demons at a course that requires extreme touch around the greens. When he won in 2019, he was two full years removed from spinal fusion — not to mention a DUI arrest — and had been contending in tournaments leading up to that Masters.

We’ll be glued to his gait this time, looking for limps and winces and anything that might suggest he wasn’t ready for this. But even if we do, don’t think the man who captured the 2008 U.S. Open with two stress fractures in his leg and a torn ACL doesn’t still believe he can win. From the day he turned professional, Woods has never entered a tournament believing he can’t. Deep down, Woods has his sights set on a sixth green jacket, a number that would tie the man he’s always chased, Jack Nicklaus. He wouldn’t be teeing it up if he didn’t. He said so Tuesday.

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“He likes challenges, doesn’t he?” Curtis Strange said on an ESPN Zoom conference last Wednesday, when Woods’ return was mere speculation.

It was Strange who interviewed Woods when Tiger was a newly minted professional prior to his first PGA Tour start. Woods told Strange his goal was to win, that second place sucks. Strange scoffed and scolded him. He told Woods, condescendingly, “You’ll learn.”

Woods was the one who did the teaching. That’s his mindset this week. To prove everyone wrong one more time. Our mindset? We’re not expecting him to find the winner’s circle. We don’t care if he doesn’t. We’re just thrilled we get to see him play again.

Right? Right?

Jason Logan is the editor of SCOREGolf Magazine and is based in Toronto. He is a contributor to the Star’s Sports section. Follow him on Twitter: @jasonSCOREGolf