Team Woods had us at hello

ORLANDO, Fla. – Should we really be surprised?

After all he has done since shaking hands with Mike Douglas on national television at age 2, since playing an exhibition with Sam Snead at 5, and teeing it up at the old L.A. Open at 16, Tiger Woods always has delivered something special, has he not?

His six consecutive U.S. Golf Association championships, 12-shot Masters win at age 21, 15-shot U.S. Open victory and 15 major titles among his 82 PGA TOUR victories ... as Maximus asked his crowd inside the fight arena in “Gladiator,” Are you not entertained? To question Woods or his talents – perhaps once-in-a-lifetime talents, says Padraig Harrington – that’s not on Tiger. That’s on us.

The calendar shows that winter is close, but December in central Florida brought unseasonably warm temperatures last week at the PNC Championship. Then Tiger Woods stepped in and dialed up the true heat, as only he does. The shots that he hit – the shaping of his drives, the towering irons that landed so softly, the dead-center makes on putts from inside 15 feet – it all was vintage material.

No, this wasn’t Augusta National in April, but it was more than a dismissive “hit and giggle” as Woods stepped back into the spotlight at Ritz-Carlton Golf Club. He didn’t know what to expect, nor did we. Tiger being Tiger, he delivered. Are we surprised?

He showed us that the golf portion of the exam he faces in the coming months looked to be in pretty good shape for a man who’d taken a year off from the game. World No. 7 Justin Thomas may have had 30 yards on him at times off the tee, but despite his self-deprecating jokes, Woods isn’t exactly short as he tries to build up his speed.

Now he must wait for a badly damaged right leg, ankle and foot to get healthy enough to meet an often overlooked requirement of being a professional golfer – the walking of the courses. Pros hoof it over six or seven miles a day, and when Woods eschewed his cart and walked the final few hundred yards to the 18th green Sunday, perhaps making a statement, it looked like arduous labor.

The road ahead for Woods, competitively, is the great unknown. He wisely deflects all questions about a return to the life he has led as a professional golfer. He’s quick to state he never again expects to play a full schedule. If he is to pick and choose, as Ben Hogan once did, when and where will he play?

When will he be healthy enough to compete at hilly Augusta National, where he won in 2019? Could he be ready in May for the PGA Championship at Southern Hills, another difficult walk but a venue where he won Major No. 13 in 2007? Will a visit to Scotland’s Old Course at St. Andrews – he’s won there twice – for the 150th Open Championship in July deliver a larger main course than the Champions Dinner?

Absent a Tiger appearance at those events, could we not see him inside the ropes again until next year’s PNC, when Charlie will be 13 and even stronger? These are all hypotheticals, and Woods is too patient, and smart, to indulge in any conjecture.

Friend Matt Kuchar – who with his oldest son, Cameron, 14, was grouped with Team Woods on Sunday – was impressed and surprised by the state of Woods’ game.

“Seeing what he can do just swinging a golf club makes me think that he will figure the other part out,” Kuchar said. “I think he’s got the hard part down.”

Woods laughed off Kuchar’s suggestion that he appeared to be TOUR ready. “No, no, no, no,” Woods said. “I totally disagree. I'm not – I'm not at that level. I can't compete against these guys right now, no. It's going to take a lot of work to get to where I feel like I can compete with these guys and be at a high level.”

Be that as it may, his PNC return was all about Tiger enjoying a few days of low-key golf with his son, Charlie, who, for a second consecutive year shined brightly. They wanted to have fun and avoid bogeys. Done and done. With Team Woods contending late Sunday, Charlie saved some of his best for last, hitting two superb iron shots into the 16th and 17th holes to set up their 10th and 11th straight birdies, respectively.

You think that didn’t fill Pops with pride?

As much as missing the competition in and of itself – his driving force for all of his nearly 46 years – Woods mostly has missed afternoons with Charlie playing golf at The Medalist. It’s where the two banter playfully and father teaches son to compete, just as his father, Earl, a tough Green Beret, once got young Tiger primed, jangling change during putts and ripping the Velcro of his golf glove during Tiger’s swings.

Team Daly won, of course – John and his son, John Jr., who plays on the golf team at Arkansas – and they are a nice story unto themselves. We’ve watched the younger Daly grow up at the PNC, and at 18, his talent reached a level that it is he, not his father, batting second in the lineup on all the critical shots and putts. The elder Daly has battled cancer and remains one of golf’s fan favorites, but Tiger was here, and he casts a shadow longer than the tallest sequoia in the forest.

If anything, the PNC shook us by the collar after a Tiger-less 2021, reminding us why we watch. Ian Poulter and his young son, Josh, followed Tiger and Charlie on Saturday. Baseball’s Ken Griffey Jr. walked with Tiger and Charlie on Sunday.

“It’s incredible,” Padraig Harrington said Sunday afternoon. “I suppose it’s occasions like this that people on the ‘inside’ see how big Tiger really is. We’re on the inside. I played with him all these years, and you get somewhat used to it. I remember when he came back at Tampa (2018 Valspar Championship), and there was just a different noise, a different crowd. None of the younger guys would have seen that.

“He completely upped it at the Masters,” Harrington continued, “and the TOUR Championship (which he won in late 2018), and he comes out here and there is a different excitement. ... It’s amazing. Last year was the Charlie Woods Show, and Tiger figured a way to make it the Tiger Woods Show this year.”

But not only did Woods show up, he delivered, too, as he always seems to do. Team Woods finished second, two shots back. Many chuckled when Woods turned up to the Masters as an amateur in 1995 and told anyone who would listen that he was there to win. Cute, we thought. But that was his mindset, we’d learn, and always has been.

Woods used the word “thankful” several times last week. Thankful to be here after his harrowing SUV crash. Thankful to have his right leg, and not be learning to walk on a prosthetic. Thankful to be alongside his only son, competing as a team.

The fans who watched? Well, Tiger was back, and they were thankful, too. They may have to wait for months to see him compete again. Maybe longer. Those are the new rules of where he is, and what he is capable of doing physically. We can wait.

“I always think that golf is in a really good place, regardless of who’s around,” said Kuchar, 43, who is in his 22nd season on TOUR. “There’s a great crop of young kids who are really doing well. But look, we all know the Tiger Effect is real. It’s a massive needle mover. Just to see this event, the excitement, the buzz, it’s huge. Everywhere he goes, it follows him.”

Where the spotlight follows him next, that’s a question for another day. For a weekend, anyway, golf was just happy to have Tiger Woods back. And he delivered, as he always does.

Were you really surprised?