We haven’t seen him since he finished down the field in China at the WGC-HSBC event on a course he likes and he finished a never-competitive 15th in this event past year.
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Justin Rose is impressed with what he has seen of Tiger Woods ahead of his competitive comeback at the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas on Friday morning (Singapore time).
Now he sees the sun on the horizon – and is chasing it.
When Woods tees it up at the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas this week, it will mark his first round of competitive golf in 466 days. All I have to do is get ready to play golf. Here’s what the designer had to say about his creation prior to the off previous year.
“I would love for him to play well”.
It’s almost 470 days since Woods last played in an event, with a tie for 10th in the Wyndham Championship back in August 2015 marking the last time we saw the Woods on the tees in a competitive outing.
Three back surgeries ensued, and in the self-imposed exile that followed the Safeway it was impossible not to wonder if Woods was done forever. Woods can only dream of finishing a career like that; he knows that never happens in golf.
“I was hoping for that role this year but it didn’t quite work out that way”. “He said, ‘No, you have to send them back out there, they are playing so well'”.
He may not have that same lethal streak, but it showed that fellow pros were still happy to be in the very presence of the 14-time major champion and the game’s greatest ever competitor. “Being nervous is a sign that I want to get back to playing”, he said on the sidelines of the Hero World Challenge, which gets underway from Thursday. He is a -170 favorite to hit the fairway with his first tee shot. That’s going to be a tall order. Sometimes I am at home, tinkering around with my buddies, just saying I don’t care what’s going on, but I care.
“One of my goals is to try and get in the top 1000 in the world rankings”, he said. “That is to go out there and try to beat these guys”. Meanwhile, graphite shafts are much more common, and driver and wood heads come equipped with dials that make them adjustable to account for variables like loft, carry, spin, fade, and draw.
There were times during his 15 months away from golf that Woods wasn’t entirely sure that would be the case.
“Charlie (Woods’s son) knows there are two putters he can’t touch”.
This week is as much about feeling his way back than looking to win. “I want to win, and I want to place the ball in the correct spots, give myself the best angles and bury these putts”.
“But if I’ve waited at the time, what, 13 months, what’s another couple more months?”
Woods, who has fallen to 898th in the world, said it had been a wise decision not to rush his return.
Woods poured his energy into helping the United States team win the Ryder Cup, doing so as an energetic and efficient vice captain, said to be the chessmaster for the American dozen.
But, there is no doubt that more people will probably be using Bridgestone balls more often since Woods is using them. Late in his press conference I asked him if this week would be considered a success even if he doesn’t shoot good scores.
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And while Woods is indeed still alive, it remains to be seen if he is kicking again, at least as far as the standards of elite professional golf are concerned. I can go do some other stuff, but I still feel I can play decent golf.
