To soon to tell, really it is.
The Tiger Woods Comeback Invitational is in the books and the good news is that Woods finished four rounds of golf without hurting himself.
The good news is that he made the most birdies of any player in the elite field — 24 to be exact.
The bad news is that he only shot four-under par for 72 holes, which means there was a lot of bad to offset all that good.
For now, we will immediately defer to the solid opinion of someone you might not argue with, the man with 18 major championships, who did have some back problems late in his career and that would be Jack Nicklaus:
“I suspect Tiger doesn’t want to come back unless he’s playing well. We’ll see. Maybe he thinks he’ll come back and win. Maybe he will. I think Tiger needs to get a few months of golf under his belt before he gets the results he wants.”
So said Nicklaus right before Woods went out last Thursday and shot 73.
On day two, playing by himself, Woods sped around in two hours, 35 minutes, made no bogeys, no doubles and put up seven birdies. His 65 was his best effort in years.
Saturday Woods was four under par through five holes and people were talking Christmas Miracle. Then it all started to come undone. He’d finish with 70 then struggle on Sunday, shooting 76.
No need to over-react to the 65 and no need to over-react to the 76.
We’re with Jack, this Woods guy needs a lot more time on the course.
Here are a few simple observations if you will:
Woods looked so very comfortable with his old best friend, the Scotty Cameron Newport 2 putter. He made a lot of good putts. He won 13 of his 14 majors with a Scotty, which made you wonder why the hell he ever picked up a Nike Method other than the fact that Nike was paying him millions.
Woods hit a lot of quality mid-iron shots. He played the par threes maybe better than anyone in the field and the par threes are the toughest part of that golf course. Note that Woods was still using his old Nike irons. Switching might be a problem.
Woods had trouble with that TaylorMade M2. It got so bad that he basically stuffed it in the bag for most of the final round and went with three-wood off the tee and even that was an issue, witness his final tee shot of the tournament when he blocked it into the junk right and simply gave us an: “Oh sh–” when the mic on the tee proved to be too close.
Top of the Tiger Woods to do list:
Find a reliable driver.
That may be easier said than done.
Woods’ game around the greens wasn’t bad. Not too good, not too bad.
In the end, Woods would finish 15th in a field of 17 after Justin Rose’s back gave out on him after just one day. Better him than Woods if you had to poll the audience.
Woods shot four-under par after rounds of 73-65-70-76. Tough weekend.
Still managed to beat Russell Knox and Emiliano Grillo.
Still a lot of drama to play out in this Tiger Woods Revival Comeback Tour.
We’ll now defer to Woods himself:
“It was a great week to be back. I made a lot of birdies but I made a lot of mistakes. It feels really weird not to play a cutter (fade). I made some birdies, which was nice. This golf course allows you to be aggressive. I just need to balance it out.
“This part of it, getting back has taxed me beyond anything I’ve experienced in this lifetime. There were some pretty dire times when I could not move.”
And when you consider that testimony, finishing 72 holes and shooting under par isn’t all that bad.
But this talk of getting to 18 majors?
Like we said before, welcome back to the drama that is Tiger Woods.
