Is it one last dance for Tiger Woods and St. Andrews?

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland – Tiger Woods stopped the questioner mid-sentence. An immediate clarification was necessary.

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Woods was being asked what makes the Old Course at St. Andrews one of his favorite courses.

“It is my favorite,” said Woods, emphasizing its unrivaled position in his hierarchy.

He has won five times at Augusta National and authored his most dominant performance at Pebble Beach in his home state, but Woods reveres the Old Course. In his office hangs a photo of him on the Swilcan Bridge during his Open debut in 1995, when he was a 19-year-old amateur. He completed the career Grand Slam here five years later and won again in 2005, his two victories at St. Andrews coming by a combined 13 shots.

He took precautions to ensure he was here this week for the 150th Open, skipping last month’s U.S. Open so that his body would be ready for another run at St. Andrews. Every time Woods tees it up there’s the hope that he can author another miracle in a career that’s full of them, but also the realization that he’s one tournament closer to an end that could be approaching faster than anyone realizes.

“I don't know how many Open Championships I have left here at St Andrews, but I wanted this one,” Woods said. “It started here for me in '95, and if it ends here in '22, it does.”

Woods’ frankness about his future brought a somber undertone to his press conference, but his face alighted whenever he discussed his craft. For all the roles that Woods plays in this game, he is a golf nerd at heart. It explains his love for St. Andrews, the most historic venue in the game and the one that demands the most creativity. The blind shots, uneven lies and rolling slopes each add another variable, as does the wind that blew across the links Wednesday. Jack Nicklaus called an Open at St. Andrews “the most intriguing and maybe the most demanding challenge in the entire game.”

The Old Course is one of three venues where Woods has won multiple majors – Augusta National and Medinah are the others – and it’s easy to see why. He was the best strategist, the best shotmaker and the most creative during his prime.

“This golf course can present so many different ways to play it,” he once said. “You just have to open your mind to it.

“It’s the way it should be.”

His first practice round at the Old Course didn’t portend his future dominance. He said the wind blew into him for all 18 holes after a shift in the tides coincided with his turn back toward the Old Grey Town. Woods played with Ernie Els and Peter Jacobsen for those first two rounds in 1995, eventually tying for 68th. He wasn’t even the headlining amateur that week, as a 6-foot-8 Scot named Gordon Sherry took low-amateur honors a week after finishing fourth in the Scottish Open.

Woods’ debut was an important learning experience, however. He asked both Jacobsen and Els for advice on how he could continue to develop as a player.

“He was a high ball hitter, which produced a lot of spin,” Jacobsen recalled recently. “He had a difficult time playing in the high winds. … I told him I thought he could manage his spin through a lower trajectory. In all my years, I had never had a young player come up and ask if I had any specific thoughts about their game. Then Ernie Els told me Tiger had approached and asked him the same thing. We both concluded there was something very unique and special about Tiger’s mindset.”

Five years later, Woods’ beat Els by eight to win his first Open Championship. He famously missed all of St. Andrews’ 112 bunkers that week with a ballstriking performance that he said was superior to his 15-shot win a month earlier at Pebble Beach. Woods’ coach, Butch Harmon, called it the greatest ballstriking performance he’d ever seen.

Woods won in 2005 in firm conditions that exacerbated the course’s intricacies. The fairways were running faster than the greens, similar to what players will face this week.

“You could hit any shot really low off the tee and it would run forever,” said Jose Maria Olazabal, who finished T3 that year. “It made it difficult because as fast and as hard as it was, you had to put the perfect trajectory, the perfect line on the ball.”

They’re the ideal conditions for Woods to compete because they allow him to squeeze out some extra yards and separate the wheat from the chaff because of the precision necessary to compete.

“It can be done,” Woods said about contending this week. “It just takes a lot of knowledge and understanding of how to play this type of golf.”

No one knows better than Woods how to conquer the Old Course. But no one’s body has endured more to get to this point.

One last dance for Woods and the Old Course could await this week.