7 weeks have passed since the dramatic humbling of Tiger Woods in Atlanta. His performance at the 93rd PGA Championship, his worst ever result in a Major Championship after rounds of 77 and 73, led many observors to state that the latterly traumatic life and career of the once near invincible Woods was all but over. Nearly 2 years have passed since Tiger last lifted a title worldwide. That was the Australian Masters on November 15th, 2009. Since then Tiger's career has been fragmented by firstly the 'scandal' which led to a 5 month absence from the game, and subsequent injuries leading to a heavily disrupted schedule. We have only seen brief glimpses of the Tiger of old. Most notably on the Saturday of the 2010 US Open and the final round of this years Masters Tournament. However, with his game seemingly in disarray, doubts over his fitness and with the new breed of young talent that have risen to the top, most have now doubted whether Tiger will achieve the goal, once believed to be a certainity, of breaking Jack Nicklaus' 18 Major Championship wins record.
In many ways the humbling of Woods continues this week as he makes yet another return to the game. On this occasion after a difficult season which saw poor results and a fragmented schedule of only 8 events, missing two majors in the process, the stage for this latest comeback is less grand than in the past as he'll tee it up for the first time in a PGA Tour Fall Series Event at the Fry's.Com Open.
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| A more positive Woods will return at the Fry's.Com Open |
However, as much as the media will likely try to paint it otherwise, this week or indeed this period can not be regarded as a 'comeback' in the truest sense of the word.
A true comeback to the game would be regarded as playing a consistent schedule over a period of weeks and months, but that is not the case this time for Tiger Woods. In fact, in that sense 2011 as a whole has been a write off year for him. After playing this week at CordeValle, Tiger will yet again take a break from the game for a month until the Australian Open, the prelude to the Presidents Cup, which he will play in early November. In fairness to Woods, he does have his reasons for not adding at least one more Fall Series event to his schedule. Next week, clashing with the McGladdery at Sea Island, Tiger will be at Pebble Beach overseeing a fundraising event for his ever increasing Foundation. On the week of Disney, the final event of the end of season series, it is believed that Tiger will be spending valued time with his two young children. These are both ocasions that will have been set in the calender most likely well before Atlanta and his failure to qualify for the FedEx Cup Playoffs. So, with all that in mind, we will only see Tiger in action on 4 occasions during the remainder of this year. This week of course, twice in Australia, and for his own event, the Chevron World Challenge in December. This is exactly why Tiger's latest return here cannot and should not be evaluated as a true comeback. Whether you're Tiger Woods, or a 20 handicapper, you cannot truly get into a fully consistent competitive mode over such a small period of time playing in so few events. It's just not possible, and Tiger will know this himself. He'll see the remainder of 2011 as a way to illustrate how far he has come on since August, and to go into the crucial 2012 season with some positive momentum. A return to the top 50 would be welcome, but it's not at all imperative. That is why if anyone wants to accurately judge where Tiger's career is, and where it'll go, then they should wait, not until the close of of play at the Chevron, but during the 2012 season. That will be the true comeback.
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| Tiger is fit and prepared |
Even with all that noted, it must be said that poor play during these 4 events would, perhaps not be a disaster for Woods, but would represent another setback in a season that has been riddled with them. A strong performance, getting into contention, or perhaps even a win would be an excellent confidence boost for Tiger going into the 2012 season, which is now without question the most crucial of his career. Success this week, and more importantly into the future requires one important factor to remain solid and stable, and that is his fitness. After injuring his left leg at Augusta in April, and then further aggravating that injury at The PLAYERS, Tiger wisely took time off to fully recover. Having just been declared by his Doctors fully fit, he came back in August for the Bridgestone and then the PGA, perhaps a little too soon. He'll go into Thursday's opening round with the leg as solid as it has been in years, and with 3 months of solid practice behind him. Something that he crucially did not have the luxury of in August. A fact that he acknowledged at Wednesday's pre tournament press conference. “I’ve had a chance to prepare, and then obviously after this event, I’ve got a few more weeks before I play in the Aussie Open. So that’s more how I’d like to prepare and practice and play in events. So I’m getting back to my normal routine.”
The fitness is the one thing that would definitely hold Tiger back from returning to the top of the game. It's an issue he positvely claims isn't a factor anymore, and with signifcant practice time over this fall and winter, something that he didn't have during almost all of this year, he will have the chance to put together a strong and consistent golf game again under the tutelage of Sean Foley. Whether that turns out to be the case this week, or in those to come, is another thing altogether. We won't get the answers about the status of Tiger's career at CordeValle or during his trip to Australia. We may get little hints at most, but we will simply not be able to accurately evaluate what the status of Tiger Woods is in golf, until the fall of 2012.
