There may be no peach ice cream sandwiches at the Masters this week (supply-chain issues apparently are to blame), but Tiger Woods was a vision in a peach-colored shirt Sunday afternoon at Augusta National, where he showed up for the second time in a week and for the first time on the Tuesday pre-tournament interview schedule.
Just hours after posting on social media that he was headed back to Augusta and saying his participation in this Masters will be “a game-time decision,†Woods added to what is often the best part of any sporting event: the anticipation.
Who else can get media members to document what time he arrived at Augusta National’s practice range – 3:21 p.m. EDT – and how many balls he hit – 33 – before being whisked by cart to the course itself, where no prying media eyes were allowed Sunday afternoon?
It wasn’t long ago that we wondered whether he would ever walk normally again. Now he’s back in the springtime sunshine at Augusta National with the Tiger swagger, doing what only he can do: making the Masters even bigger and more anticipated than before.
His participation in this Masters may not be official until Woods and his reconstructed right leg arrive on the first tee Thursday, but it feels as if we’ve moved past the “so you’re telling me there’s a chance†phase.
How cool is this?
This isn’t about his trying to win a sixth green jacket or a 16th major championship or breaking the tie with Sam Snead as the PGA Tour’s all-time victory leader with an 83rd title – at least not yet and probably not this week at all.
It is, however, about seeing Woods again on the golf course, playing for keeps. It’s about his managing his expectations and the rest of us managing our imaginations. Or maybe it’s the other way around.
No one would have believed last fall that this Masters would be without Phil Mickelson but with Woods.
Sports and life, man.
Both can throw some curveballs.
It has been nine months since Collin Morikawa won the last major championship played and a full year since Hideki Matsuyama slipped a green jacket over the shoulders that had carried the hopes of Japan for years. Since then, Patrick Cantlay has won a FedEx Cup, the Americans have won the Ryder Cup in a rout and Woods has privately and diligently gone about rebuilding his body one more time.
When the rest of us were looking at the kitchen-floor flat Old Course and the Open Championship in July as Woods’ likeliest spot to return, he was imagining hitting 8-irons into the 12th green and turning his tee shot over at the par-5 13th at Augusta National.
Of course, he was.
Mention Woods’ name these days and what comes to mind first? One of his red-shirt Sundays or the image of that Genesis SUV as a mangled mess at the bottom of a southern California hill?
He almost died that February day in 2021, and it seemed for certain that his golf career had ended. Woods, however, never has let others set his path for him. First, he had to keep his right leg, then he had to learn to walk again, and then he started hitting golf balls again.
It’s not just how Woods, at age 46, will feel when he finishes each day; it’s how he feels when he wakes up the next morning.
Assuming he plays this week, when Woods steps to the first tee at Augusta National on Thursday, the cheers will be as deep and as rich as they were three years ago when he won his fifth Masters with a back that essentially has been soldered together through multiple surgeries.
It’s not so much about the shots Woods is capable of hitting – he’s not going to show up without his best stuff – it’s about handling the hills at Augusta over a long, likely wet, muddy and windy week. It’s not just how Woods, at age 46, will feel when he finishes each day; it’s how he feels when he wakes up the next morning.
All of that will sort itself out over the next few days, but at the moment, as the sun rises on another Masters week, the best event in golf has gotten better.
The azaleas are busting out, all pink and purple, the grass is impossibly green, and it looks and feels like nothing else.
Maybe this is the year when Jon Rahm or Justin Thomas or Xander Schauffele books himself a seat at the Champions Dinner for life. Maybe Rory McIlroy finally gets it done or Dustin Johnson does it again or Scottie Scheffler just keeps winning.
In April, the game comes to Augusta National, not so much for renewal but to remember the Aprils that have come before and to see how this Masters will play out.
It seems as if we know it all by heart. The shots required around Amen Corner. Patrons, not spectators. The first nine and the second nine. Golden Bell. Pimento cheese and egg salad.
Arnie winning every other year for seven years. Jack becoming the first player to put the green jacket on himself. Snead. Sneed. Seve.
Larry Mize and his purple shirt. Greg Norman and his Sundays. Bubba Watson and his recovery shot.
And, if all goes well, Tiger Woods.
Again.
Top: Tiger Woods and Billy Horschel in the practice area prior to the 2022 Masters
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