Whether Tiger Woods is ‘back’ or not, this comeback has looked different

Tiger Woods sucked us in again on Friday at the Hero World Challenge, going on a birdie run that, at one point, put him in the lead. Here’s why this comeback has yielded room for well-founded hope.

Tiger Woods’ Friday round at the Hero World Challenge was actually two shots worse than his Friday round at this same event last year. At the 2016 Hero, Tiger posted a dazzling 65 that whipped the world into a frenzy on a random December Friday afternoon when golf is supposed to be the furthest off the radar. The frenzy happened again one year later on this Friday, and while his 67 is two shots worse on the scorecard, there are no pictures on the scorecard and this round featured positive demonstrable differences.

Tiger’s start was a tour de force. He came off the first tee like Russell Westbrook catching an outlet pass to start the break and then exploded through the entire front nine. The run featured all the shots. Tiger nuked drives, blasted fairway woods, striped his irons, converted tricky chips, and rolled in putts to go out in 31 and with sole possession of the lead. You try to keep some perspective about these Tiger comebacks — we have a well-established record of so many abruptly careening into a pit of despair. But this opening nine was enthralling. I let the guard down and gave you permission to freak out over what we were watching and what it could mean for the future.

Tiger came back down to earth on his second nine, posting a 37 to finish with a 4-under round of 68. He made two bogeys that were more a result of sloppiness and rust than some alarming issue with his swing or game we’ve seen in the past. It was just a perfectly fine, mediocre 37 that had him still in the top five at the midpoint of this hit-and-giggle offseason event.

The round is two shots worse that the Friday freak out from last year but this looks different and more encouraging. Here’s why:

The Big Stick

Power

Tiger’s power is back. It may go away at some point or slowly fade, but right now, he’s swinging with a speed absent from other comebacks or for much of the second half of his career. This different surgery, the fusion as opposed to the multiple microdiscectomies, has, for whatever medical reason, provided him with a swing that he says is pain free and given him elite power. It’s a stiffer swing, as he freely admits “now that I’m fused,” but it’s resulting in some bombs.

We’d heard second-hand stories from pros he’d played with in South Florida over the past month. Rickie Fowler said Tiger was hitting it “way by” him. Brad Faxon said Tiger outdrove Dustin Johnson, the best driver in golf, half the time during a friendly game. DJ told us he thought the speed was back too. Then we saw it in practice rounds this week, including Tiger driving the green of a 340-yard par-4.

Now, he’s doing it in front the cameras in competitive rounds and with consistency. He smoked one 330 yards on the very first hole, leaving just a short flip wedge into the green for an opening birdie. At the third, his ball speed hit 180 mph, which is what he’s been pushing close to all week, and would put him among the best on the PGA Tour.

Perhaps the most illustrative example of the resurgent power came at the ninth, where Tiger hit another big one off the tee and then nuked a fairway wood from 271 yards. The fairway wood was maybe the climax of this Friday session of Tiger-mania. He converted the eagle too and took sole possession of the lead at the turn.

Consistency

Tiger has shown flashes of power in the past, but not like this and not with this consistency. During last year’s Hero World Challenge, despite the birdies and that one round of 65, he was hitting it all over the yard. He had no idea where it was going with the driver, missing both ways and scrambling on just about every hole to stay in it.

That wildness is not there this year and has had a few colleagues of mine asking if he’s ever driven the ball this well? His misses have been small misses, usually to the right spot, and predictable. This is not the miss where it’s going 30 yards off the fairway on one tee and 20 yards off the fairway in the opposite direction on the next.

We’ve got a small sample size here, but it still looks demonstrably different from previous comebacks. He’s crushing it and largely avoiding the wildness that’s made his overall game a mess in recent years. Even his own caddie is surprised by the pop this early in the comeback.

The driver is more important than at any other time in the game’s history. Advanced stats bear this out and anecdotal evidence from the top pros corroborate it. The modern equipment, specifically the golf ball, have completely changed the way the pro game is played. If you’re not a good driver of the ball, you’re not going to be competitive on today’s PGA Tour. Tiger hasn’t had this speed and he certainly didn’t have reliable consistency. Whether it’s the fusion surgery or a swing change or those factors in conjunction, he’s shown both speed and consistency this week.

It’s obvious he’s in love with this power. That can be dangerous if he’s too obsessed with trying to keep up with the 20-something big hitters. But right now, it’s given his entire game and this comeback a juice we’ve not seen in prior returns.

Caveats and disclaimers

Chipping

Tiger could become an elite driver and it not matter if those odious chip yips ever attack again. That’s a mental hurdle more than any physical health one, and we’re told from pros who’ve been wrecked by chip yips that they never realllly go away. He horribly stubbed a couple chips in the first round, but this is a course with extremely tight run-offs around the greens that have given not just Tiger trouble.

Hideki Matsuyama duffed a hideous chip on Friday. Charley Hoffman, the leader after 36 holes, used a wood to run a ball onto the green instead of trying to contend with the tight lies at this course. When Tiger does those things, we immediately think of the incomprehensible yip show from 2015 that threatened to end his career just as fast as a disintegrating spine.

There were no signs of chipping trouble on Friday. At one point, Tiger even got creative and decided to chip with his ball already on the green, going over a slope to run it to the hole. He executed it perfectly.

Sample size

Again, we’re dealing with a 36-hole sample size here. Will that speed and power continue next year when or if he’s playing three times in a month? He may look different and much better, but what’s sustainable? Which leads us into the other obvious caveat...

Health

Tiger is “back” not because his swing looks good or the putter is rolling true. He’s back because his health, for the moment, permits it. This is a Tiger era in which you’re uneasy with every aggressive and violent cut at the ball. This may be a different swing coming off a different surgery, but it needs to be done for a sustained stretch with no wincing, grabbing of the back, or crumbling to the ground. The wet blanket portion of this is that it’s going to take awhile before we are relieved of the fear that those winces and crumbles could happen at any moment.

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Because it’s Tiger Woods, and we overanalyze every single shot and word, we’re always ping-ponging from uncontrollable optimism to overwhelming dread with little room in between. The analysis is always framed between either “He’s back and he’s going to win the Masters” to “His career is over and he’s embarrassing himself.” Jim Bones Mackay, Phil Mickelson’s legendary caddie turned excellent on-course reporter, put it well at the end of the day, saying Tiger is “close to playing at an extremely high level.”

We may be getting sucked in again only to have another comeback evaporate. But so far, this one looks different from the last, and in a way that yields well-founded hope and optimism.