January 26, 2018

  • Tim KeownESPN Senior Writer

    Shut

    • Senior Author for ESPN The Magazine
    • Columnist for ESPN.com
    • Writer of five books (3 NYT best-sellers)

SAN DIEGO -- Tiger Wood returned to competitive golf game Th morning at 10:20 a.m. PST, only the actual moment he returned as a competitor came a bit later. On the par-3 16th pigsty of the Torrey Pines South Form, Woods came within a few inches of a pigsty-in-one. In the covered grandstand parallel to the green, amid the convergence of the well-heeled and the over-served, the appearance of the ball so close to the cup was a near religious feel. The roar was emphatic and prolonged, and when information technology died down merely enough an undeniably local voice shouted, "Dude, that's what Tiger brings!" as if he'd been saying it all twenty-four hour period long and couldn't, until now, find anyone to believe him.

Golf fans root for everyone, only they root for Patrick Reed and Charley Hoffman, Woods' playing partners for the first two rounds of the Farmers Insurance Open, out of obligation; they root for Tiger out of some deep-seated promise that he -- and by extension, everyone watching -- can recapture a bit of what they used to exist. The problem with rooting for Tiger at this particular juncture, it seems, is that nobody is entirely sure whom they're rooting for -- the Tiger they remember, or this ane? Tiger is maybe the just one who is certain. Ix months removed from L5/S1 spinal-fusion surgery, he says, "This is a different torso." He's just now trying to go used to it. Whether anybody else tin is more difficult to respond.

For two days they lined up 20 deep forth the fairways and hundreds deep around the greens out of marvel and hope and prurient interest. Tiger fabricated the cutting, never a foregone conclusion, and he repeatedly emphasized that he returns to competitive golf unburdened by expectation. He's 42 years sometime, and his torso looks the same: strong and fit. All the age seems to have settled in his face: jowls a chip heavier, creases on his neck, the circuitous hairline. He hasn't played since his short-lived and probably ill-brash improvement of a year ago, and nothing goes unnoticed. The assessments come up without intermission: Tiger is walking with more fluid strides, none of the choppiness that evidently was so prominent on this course last Jan; Tiger is swinging with more of an unbroken arc, none of the flinchiness he showed final twelvemonth before spinal surgery in Apr; Tiger looks more confident, more composed, more than patient.

It seems almost patronizing to root for this man, in one case decreed to be the greatest ever, to play just well enough to limbo under the cutting line, but that's the benign credence of his new reality. Some saturated loudmouth was yelling "Tiger, catch Jack, baby!" after a wild tee shot on Thursday, but afterward Woods was talking about how appreciative he was "to feel the blitz once again and have a scorecard in my hand again." He tempered questions about his historic dominance of Torrey Pines (eight professional wins here) by lamenting the form remodel and saying, "I can't quite carry 330 anymore."

Yet, there was just enough at that place to create hope, or at least not kill it. On Th, later Wood smoked his 2nd shot on the par-5 sixth to within 20 feet of the hole, he stood next to the ball and struck the classic regal Tiger pose: left mitt on hip, right leg crossed over left at the ankle, leaning on his putter with his right mitt. Every crisp bulldoze was accompanied past a chorus of "Tiger's back, baby!" down the line from tee box to fairway to greenish, every bit if they were all singing in a round. The mere act of making the cut gave everyone simply enough to keep remembering, and just enough for him to be playing on a Saturday, on merit, for the offset fourth dimension since 2015.

Tiger seems happy. He's engaging with the gallery, and at ane moment Thursday -- as a two-person hang glider swooped dorsum and forth to scout him along the coastal holes of the South Course -- he took some fourth dimension to walk to the cliff and cheque for whales. He took fourth dimension to sign autographs afterwards both rounds, non something he always does, and fifty-fifty though it was 3½ minutes on a Fri afternoon, it was 3½ minutes he didn't take to spend signing his name.

Who's here for Tiger? They're all here for Tiger. The swells in the sponsor tent slurping Gray Goose and chugging on stogies the size of fungo bats are here for Tiger, as are a skillful chunk of the rest of them. Information technology's never proficient practice to generalize, only here goes: A lot of the people following Tiger around Torrey Pines probably wouldn't be anywhere near this golf game course if Steve Wheatcroft was paired with Charley Hoffman and Patrick Reed and Tiger was practicing his chipping game back in Florida. In fact, I'd exist willing to guarantee the 2 guys in the tiger suits wearing "Make Tiger Corking Again" caps wouldn't have been hither. Same for the dude in the "Make Sundays Peachy Again" T-shirt (silhouette of one of Tiger'southward historic fist pumps) who screamed "Light the candle!" at Woods, presumably as a means of encouragement merely your guess is as good as mine.

The group following Tiger includes but is not express to iii uniformed San Diego police officers -- "We're only here for him," one tells me -- a media group ranging from more than than 50 to less than 10 depending on whether it's lunchtime, and roughly half the paying customers.

On Thursday, when Woods played the pigsty that runs on the other side of the fence from the Scripps Research Institute (No. 10 on the S Form), employees rushed to sit and hold upwardly their phones amongst the scrub castor and eucalyptus outside the building, while several others stood on the scaffolding exterior the eye's concrete plant to become a free expect at the comeback.

Those of united states of america who walked with Tiger during the first round were accompanied by a class marshal -- late 60s, tournament-issue cap and jacket, Oakley highway patrolman sunglasses, requisite khakis, hiking boots -- who approached his job with unwavering seriousness. He, and he alone, repeated the mantra "Silence your phones, please," countless times at each hole, in a tone that made the "delight" role feel less than sincere. His commitment to the bit was impressive. There were literally F-18s and Sikorsky helicopters from nearby Miramar flying direct overhead all mean solar day long and this guy could detect the distant buzz of a text bulletin with flawless certainty. The tournament slogan is "Keep Calm; Torrey On" -- once again, your guess is equally good as mine -- but he was determined to obliterate the sentiment. If he could take removed every phone, and probably every song cord, within a 100-k radius of every one of Tiger's shots, he would have done information technology with neat pleasure.

Everything surrounding this roaming overabundance of humanity creates a monstrous imbalance in attention across both the North and Due south Courses at Torrey Pines and spawns innumerable lamentations for the miserable plight of the other 152 golfers in the Farmers Insurance Open up. These young men are remarkable golfers and upstanding citizens, the reasoning goes, and they're being almost uniformly ignored this week because of Tiger. Information technology'southward either unfortunate or unfair or too bad, when in reality it is none of those. The guys who spent the by two days in closest proximity to Tiger are perfect examples. Reed is a phenomenal role player with a friendly disposition no thing where the brawl lands, but the merely matter I actually wanted to know was why he takes so long to hit a shot. Vaccines take been developed in less time, and with less scientific scrutiny, than it takes Reed to hit an approach shot, and when he reaches the green the process is elongated by his caddie's insistence on lying on the ground, chin pressed to the tiny blades and optics fixed on a hush-hush only he can see, manifestly equally a means of communing with the topography and improving his boss's odds of making a putt. Reed is 27 years old and has fabricated more than $18 million playing golf, and so there'south no dubiousness information technology's working, but still. And the most riveting matter about Hoffman, bated from his residence in nearby Poway (a fact brought upward at least three times a hole) and the fact that he used to have long pilus and has earned more than than $25 million on Tour, is his beginning name, which seems unremarkable but must non be judging by the many and varied means spectators invoke it at high book from hole to hole.

Fans lined up 20 deep forth the fairways and hundreds deep along the greens hours in advance because Tiger Woods -- triumphant and flawed and physically brittle -- remains the but golfer able to transcend the sport. Every ane of his shots is shown on the television broadcast because he is the only i who can go from bunker to bunker on the same hole -- every bit he did on Thursday -- and elicit a reaction from the oversupply that suggests he permanently depressed them all. He is the but one who tin, through the mere act of making the cut, conjure thoughts of a return to potency. He is, and remains, everlasting proof nosotros all relish the possibility of a rise subsequently the fall more than the rise that came before information technology.