Take a moment to admire Tiger’s ridiculous shot from the fairway bunker at The Open

He was leading outright on the back nine but now sits just one behind, and man all of a sudden it feels like it’s 2006 all over.

Tiger Woods leads The Open outright, on Sunday, on the back nine. This is a thing that we would’ve required hallucinogens to witness just 9 to 12 months ago. The greatest golfer of our generation was man who spoke like his career was over, with a spine so decrepit he struggled to play backyard kick-around soccer with his own kids

So, take a moment to pause from the hysteria, and just breathe this shot in.

Fresh into his lead, Tiger hit his tee shot on the 10th down the left side and into one of Carnoustie’s many fairway bunkers. Such are the location where many would-be championship walks have come to a halt over the years — look no further than Kevin Kisner’s display on the 3rd hole early in this round.

A safe play out of these bunkers is to either A) play out laterally into the fairway or B) take your medicine, lay-up, and try to make par with a wedge. With the leaderboard collapsing around him, a safe play like that would’ve been the smart, preservationist play.

Tiger did not do that. He did this.

Holy crap, just admire that recoil for a moment. This is a man that’s had his spine fused together, ripping and jolting his lumbar muscles like he’s 19 again. And the angle-of-attack on the downswing. To get the ball up quickly enough, he’s got to take an incredibly steep backswing and downswing — which is prone to taking way too much sand, hitting it fat, and leaving it short. It takes incredible, insane skill with the hands to almost flip the ball out of a fairway bunker like this. Difficulty here is a 10, and he’s pulled of a 12.

The result of that? HOLY TRAJ.

What an afternoon at Carnoustie, y’all