Tiger Woods returns to centre stage

When a player is ranked 898th in the world, he doesn’t expect to have the eyes of the golfing world focused on his every move. Except, Tiger Woods is different! And, a month before his 41st birthday, Woods - after a series of false starts heralding his return to the game - will finally, belatedly but fittingly, return to tournament play in the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas where a small, select field of 18 players will compete for a purse of €3.3 million.

This time, the money is secondary. For the most part, the story will be on Woods. Like fortune tellers seeking to infiltrate the psyche of their customers to gain some knowledge, those observing his every swing, chip, putt and move made by Woods will aim to discover if his return to golf after a 16 months absence caused by surgery to his back is the harbinger to a second coming.

Only a month ago, Woods professed his game to be too “vulnerable” to make a planned reappearance at the Safeway Open in California on the PGA Tour and also withdrew from a scheduled outing at the Turkish Airlines Open. So it is in the safe environment of the World Challenge, with his own foundation the charitable cause, that Woods - with a new golf ball, Bridgestone rather than Nike - will provide an indication of his wellbeing.

As a signpost to the future direction of his career, and whether he can add to his haul of 14 Major titles, it is a first step. Woods, who last played at the Wyndham Championship on the PGA Tour last year, claimed he is again driving the ball 300-310 yards. “I can hit all the shots now, on call,” he claimed in interviews after a practice sessions over the weekend.

Speaking to ESPN, he remarked of his comeback: “I’m not dead, I’m ready to go . . . I’m nervous for every tournament I play in, whether it’s after a lay-off, or six-in-a-row, or a Major. I care. If I care, I’m nervous and it’s good to be that way. To have that nervous energy and channel it into aggressions, into focus, concentration - that’s good stuff. If I wasn’t nervous, that would mean I didn’t care. I don’t want to be out there flat. I want to be out here (playing) so bad. Now I am.”

Woods added that his decision not to return to action at the Safeway Open or in Turkey had been the correct one. “The competitor inside me wanted to go so badly and was itching to go. I had played feeling worse but what’s the point in rushing back when I’ve waited over a year to begin with?”

Woods, whose last Major title came in winning the 2008 US Open, has undergone a number of surgical procedures during his career, including repeated knee surgeries, Achilles tendon and, in recent years, multiple microdesectomy to remove disc material pressing into his spinal cord.

Adam Scott, who is not in the field in the Bahamas, spoke of the challenge ahead for Woods in his bid to reclaim his former glory: “I think he can probably get back to 100 per cent of health but perhaps 100 per cent now may not be the same as it was 10, 12 or 15 years ago . . . unfortunately, we are all getting older and after surgeries and all that you are just not quite the same. I don’t know where his 100 per cent puts him. After such a long layoff, he definitely has quite a challenge ahead of him to compete at the highest level again, even though he is Tiger . . . he has quite a road to travel to get back up there.”

Woods will take his game - apparently much improved since he announced it to be too vulnerable just over a month ago to merit any return to tournament play - to a tournament which is small numerically with only 18 players but high on quality with three of this year’s four Major champions - US Open winner Dustin Johnson, British Open champion Henrik Stenson and USPGA champion Jimmy Walker - playing, along with Olympic gold medallist Justin Rose.

Hero World Challenge field (world ranking)

Rickie Fowler (12)
Emiliano Grillo (25)
Dustin Johnson (3)
Zach Johnson (38)
Russell Knox (19)
Brooks Koepka (17)
Matt Kuchar (22)
Hideki Matsuyama (6)
Louis Oosthuizen (26)
Patrick Reed (8)
Brandt Snedeker (28)
Jordan Spieth (5)
Henrik Stenson (4)
Jimmy Walker (20)
Bubba Watson (10)
Tiger Woods (898)