Tiger Woods — The 2019 Newsmaker Of The Year

Tiger Woods turns 44 today.

Happy Birthday, TW.

Forty-four is pretty long in the tooth in this sport, normally, but we’re not talking about normal here — we’re talking about Tiger freaking Woods.

At 44, he remains a master tactician.  He can plot his way around a course better than anyone in the game.

At 44, he remains a master shot-maker.  Better iron player than anyone out there.

At 44, he still has the best and most imaginative short game of anyone — that showed in a big way at the Presidents Cup where the greens bamboozled the best from both sides.

At 44, his putting is still strong, really strong, strong enough for him to be a threat. It’s not as good as it was in his prime, might be his eyes, as eye-sight doesn’t get better with age and throughout his career, he read the greens better than the rest and probably still does.

At age 43, he won twice in calendar year 2019, including The Masters, his 15th major and 81st overall win on the PGA Tour.

A late-season victory in Japan (ZOZO) then a great stint as playing captain in Australia showed everyone that Tiger is still Tiger.

At age 44, Tiger Woods is our Newsmaker Of The Year.

No one saw the Masters win coming, not until Brooks Koepka was too dumb to know that you don’t go after the flag at the par three 12th at Augusta on Sunday.  You hit it at the back bunker and pick the club that settles in the middle of the green,  18-20 feet away from that oh-so-tempting far right pin location.  That bunker is where Nicklaus aimed, it’s where Tiger aims.  You might remember that Jack hit it in that bunker when he won back in ’86, made four on the hole  but still won.

Coming into that Masters,  Woods finished an undistinguished 17th at his own event in the Bahamas.  He was 20th at The Farmers at Torrey Pines, 15th in L.A. at the Genesis, 10th at the WGC-Mexico, 30th at the Players.  He missed the final four at the WGC Match Play in Austin.  So no, nothing special coming into Augusta.

Tiger would probably be the first to admit that he didn’t do much after that win, probably let it overwhelm even him for a few months.  He missed the cut at the May slot for the PGA, tied for 21st at the U.S. Open then missed the cut at the Open Championship in Ireland.

Tiger didn’t do anything in the FedEx playoffs either.  Withdrew from the Northern Trust and didn’t finish high enough to make it to East Lake, where he had won in 2018 to start his comeback.

As for the ZOZO, no one saw that coming.  It was win No. 82 and he’s now tied with Sam Snead for most PGA Tour wins.

Which brings us to what will be Tiger Woods 2020.

He missed all of 2016, played once in 2017, played too much in 2018, trying to get himself back in the fray, trying to get his ranking high enough for WGC events.  In 2019, he played 12 times, four of those were majors, so only seven other events.  Going forward, Tiger is looking for that perfect formula to extend his career as long as possible.  Less is better with all his surgically repaired body parts.

Two wins, victories No. 81 and 82 — Tiger is indeed our Newsmaker.

So what’s in store for 2020?  Look for Woods to figure out a better way to compete in that new, compressed major schedule which starts with The Players in March (no it’s still not a major), The Masters in April, the PGA in May, the U.S. Open in June then the Open Championship in July — one a month for four straight months.

Seems a given that Tiger will get record-breaking No. 83 in 2020 and given what we’ve seen lately, it would come as no shock if it was The Masters and a 17th major.

See you next year.