Tiger Woods falls short at The Players but his weekend charge was exactly what we needed

Tiger poured in birdies at TPC Sawgrass and made a potential blowout weekend at The Players exciting.

Let’s start with the obvious: this was fun. Tiger Woods pranced around TPC Sawgrass on the weekend inside the top five at The Players Championship. He nuked the ball with his driver, twirled to-and-fro, and poured in putts to either convert birdies or save pars. The less fun: Tiger sputtered to the finish on both Saturday and Sunday.

The weekend started with Tiger going from juuuust making the cut on the number to putting a scare into runaway leader Webb Simpson on the back nine on Sunday. It was a mild fright, nothing big, but he was at least in the TV broadcast, tied for second, and trying to make a move at one of the five or six biggest golf events in the world. This is progress, significant progress and it was fine if you lost it a bit watching him go on birdie runs that still never put him in position to win.

Woods started the weekend 14 shots back of 36-hole leader Webb Simpson. He started Sunday 11 shots back of Simpson. By the 14th tee, he was tied for second and just four off the lead. The desperate push came undone with a bogey at the 14th, and washed away completely with his first water ball in 13 years at the island 17th hole.

This finishes to both rounds are disappointments. But he was the longest of longshots given his position at the midpoint on Friday night. This weekend was gravy and instead of a depressing 36-hole slog on the bottom half of the leaderboard, he put together his best round of the year and backed it up with another early final round move. That’s a big improvement over his last start here in 2015, and his last three starts on the PGA Tour.

The expectations for Woods at this point in the comeback have heightened significantly since January, when we just didn’t want his back to explode at impact. This will bump the expectations even higher and Woods is feeling it too, saying “God I hit the ball good” after his final round.

Following Saturday’s vintage 65, the low round of the day at Sawgrass that launched him 60 spots up the leaderboard, Tiger went back to work again on Sunday. Woods made three straight birdies in the heart of his front nine that again whipped those on the ground and those watching at home and on Twitter into a frenzy. The burst came on holes three through five and featured a putt of 15 feet, a stuffed wedge to five feet, and another lengthy putt from almost 20 feet. Here’s the wedge work:

It was this last putt at the 5th hole that pushed him into a momentary tie for third at 11-under. Right before he put it in the center, NBC walking analyst and former caddie Jim Bones Mackay said, “If there’s such a thing as a wheelhouse 25-footer, this is it.” He was guesstimating the distance but he was not off on the read and result.

Tiger’s putter was the biggest difference between this weekend charge and the quiet middling result last week in Charlotte. His putter has been strong all season but not making up ground like it did these last two days. Even when the putts were not for highlight birdies, they were for some clutch par from a 50/50 distance.

Woods added a birdie at the par-5 9th hole to officially go out in 32. At 12-under, he was in a tie for 3rd place.

It was going to take a miracle on the back nine just to contend late Sunday. He, and the rest of the field, had a Webb problem. Simpson started the day seven strokes clear of second-place and 11 shots clear of Tiger. He was not as red hot on the front nine in the final round but he didn’t need to be. An even-par round of 72 will probably be more than enough to win.

The path for Tiger just to really be in contention, not even win, was something like a back nine 30 and a complete collapse from Simpson. We didn’t get close to that as his wedges and distance control left him at some critical points, and then the aggressive play at 17 resulted in a ball slamming into the bulkhead of the island green.

Tiger did not win and did not end up coming close. But he was in the conversation late on Sunday almost a year after he’d had his back fused and was struggling to walk. It seemed possible we’d never seem him on Tour again. This weekend, we got a 65-69 that featured drives well over 300 yards and the kind of birdie streaks from a prior vintage. It was delightful to watch him stalking and charging all over the place this weekend at one of the game’s biggest events given where we were a year ago. The season is still just one major old if he’s in the form he was this weekend going forward, Tiger will be back to contending for the game’s most important championships.

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UPDATES:

• Tiger’s first birdie on the back nine came at the hole where he absolutely had to have one if he wanted to post a special number. He missed a putt inside 10 feet at the 10th, which he turned into a juicy birdie chance. A red number at the par-5 11th was mandatory, and he tapped in for birdie there after just burning the edge with his eagle putt.

• We’re still showing some restraint here, but Tiger is tied for freaking second late on Sunday at The Players Championship! A birdie at the short par-4 12th, which is a driveable par-4, pushed him to 14-under for the week and in a tie with Danny Lee. He’s still five shots behind Webb, but maybe seeing Tiger’s name up there in second will make things even more nervy down the stretch.

• The desperate push to put a scare in leader might have come to an end at the 14th hole. That’s the one hole that has tormented Tiger throughout his career, but it’s usually the tee sheet that he always blows wide right or in the water on the left. This time, he smoked his drive dead center and just hit an approach shot that spun off the green. A failure to get up-and-down followed by a birdie from Webb back at the 11th resulted in a quick two-shot swing. Tiger is six shots off the lead with four holes to play. Now it’s really all on Webb to make a mess.
• The dream officially, completely drowned at the 17th hole, where Tiger put it in the water for the first time in 13 years. Woods tried to hit a sand wedge at that back right pin and came up short. He’d play from the drop zone, could not get up and down, and walked off with a double bogey. He wasn’t going to win anyways but that is a big hit to the world rankings points.