There have been other Tiger Woods wins that have been more dominant, more history defining, and more exciting, but none will go down in golf lore as more memorable than Sunday’s at the Tour Championship.
Woods, who in May of 2017 wrote on his blog, “even lying down hurt,” and who is just over 17 months removed from his fourth back surgery, captured the final event of the 2017-18 season by two shots, his first win on the PGA Tour since 2013.
From his arrival – the backwards hat, sunglasses, and sleeveless workout top combo could have ended the tournament before it began – to his final tap-in, it was all Woods, all day.
While his playing partner on the day Rory McIlroy was 2 over through 5 holes and eventually finished 4 over, Woods birdied his first hole and never looked back.
His competitors crumbled Sunday, and despite three bogeys on his final nine holes, Woods came out on top.
And, yes, that was a sentence written in 2018.
All year long Woods tantalized the golfing world with a variety of emotions. We felt sad for him last year when we thought this was truly it.
And then we felt thrilled to see him return and even contend – a tie for second at the Valspar Championship, followed up by a tie for fifth at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
He contended in the last two majors of the year, and we even started to get angry.
“Come on Tiger,” we thought, “why can’t you win?” Forgetting of course, that three years ago Woods told the Associated Press, “the hardest part for me is there’s really nothing I can look forward to, nothing I can build toward.”
But a tie for sixth at The Open Championship and a runner-up at the PGA Championship all helped lead to Sunday.
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For a final act during the final tournament of the year, Woods put a bow on his most unforgettable year as a professional golfer.
In 1996 and 1997 we were welcomed to Tiger Woods’ world, and from 1999-2001 we got to see history in the making. In 2005 and 2006 we got to wonder how far up he could go, and from 2014-2017 we wondered how far he could fall.
Woods is a real person – a damaged single father with demons. Last year he was on such an aggressive mix of pain medications he was driving in Florida and told police officers he thought he was in California.
But because of his realness, he makes us, the golfing public, feel real feelings.
We thought he was done, and then we got excited when it wasn’t. He won this one for himself, but for all of us, too.
We’ve grown as people who watch Tiger Woods – from youngsters who hadn’t yet picked up a club, but who did in May of 1997 because of what Woods did, to husbands and wives and mothers and fathers ourselves 21 years later.
We’ve watched Woods live his life as we’ve lived ours, all the while hoping for a blast of nostalgia so powerful we felt like we needed to record this moment on our VCR’s.
But we no longer have to talk about Woods in the past tense. We can look the future with Woods as legitimate contender for more.
In 2019, golf’s majors will head to three layouts that have historical significance for Woods. He’ll have a chance to chase down Jack Nicklaus’ major-championship total.
Nothing needs to be said about Woods’ return to Augusta National in April for the Masters, where, according to the Westgate Las Vegas Superbook, he is the betting favourite. But following the Masters next year (in the revised PGA Tour schedule) is the PGA Championship at Bethpage Black in New York, where Woods won the 2002 U.S. Open and finished tied for sixth at the same major seven years later.
Then it’s the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, where Woods won the 2000 U.S. Open by 15 shots, and finished fourth at the same major in 2010.
Golf is the most difficult of sports to predict what may happen. The four rounds are played on the same course but the set up, the weather, and the golfer himself is so different on every shot and every day.
Woods himself may work out too hard this winter and hurt himself and it won’t be the same.
But right now we have hope, and we have Woods in the winner’s circle.
Like Usain Bolt in the starting blocks or Connor McDavid on a breakaway, a healthy Tiger Woods reminded us this week that part of Woods’ appeal is that anything seems possible when he plays.
And even winning, which seemed truly impossible a year-and-a-half-ago, was indeed possible all along.
