Tiger Woods turns 42: What to expect from the aging superstar’s latest comeback

Las Vegas gives the four-time Masters winner a pretty good shot to earn his fifth green jacket. And Jack Nicklaus (who jokingly hinted at his own comeback to protect his majors record) has better things to do than watch the closest challenger to his all-time mark make his latest return to the PGA Tour following another lengthy, injury-related hiatus.

No matter where you stand on Woods’ chances of reclaiming even a wee bit of his erstwhile winning form (and nearly everyone in the golf world has an opinion on whether Tiger will ever get back to the winner’s circle for the first time since 2013), two facts are beyond debate:

• The victor of 79 tour events will go it alone as his own swing coach (at least to start the 2018 campaign).
• He’ll be 42 when he next strikes a ball that counts against Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy, and a host of other young players who grew up idolizing Tiger but are unaffected by the aura surrounding their elder in his glory days.

They say it’s your birthday

It’s difficult for those of a certain vintage (who remember when a 2-year-old mini-me Tiger made his debut on the national stage and can’t believe it’s been 21 years since his “Hello World” moment) to come to grips with Woods ripping another year off the calendar.

Yet Tiger celebrates another birthday every Dec. 30. The occasion of his 42nd, with one tournament deemed a success by most under his white belt, and 2018 looming for the injury-plagued superstar, seemed a good time to reflect on what we might expect from the world’s 656th-ranked player when he kicks off his season poised to work himself into game shape for the Masters in April.

Woods’ solid showing at the 18-player, no-cut Hero World Challenge sparked widespread enthusiasm in the golf community and beyond, with even casual fans anxious to see how Tiger can perform in the latest attempt to revive his career. While not every observer was bullish on what Woods may accomplish going forward after four back surgeries since March 2014, ex-swing coach Harmon cautioned naysayers against betting against his former student.

“I learned a long time ago never to say never when it comes to Tiger Woods,” Harmon told Golf Channel after Woods put up three strong rounds (69-68-75-68) at the Hero.

“He’ll prove you wrong,” Harmon said. “I think he can win again.”

Tony Romo, T22 in Golf Digest’s 2015 ranking of the top 100 athlete-golfers, does not think his sometime Pebble Beach pro-am partner will hoist at least one more trophy; he knows it.

“Tiger’s going to make a run,” the Cowboys former QB and current NFL analyst for CBS told broadcasting partner (and voice of the Masters) Jim Nantz during a recent Patriots-Bills game. “I’m telling you right now, Tiger Woods is back.”

Not so all-in on Tiger’s chances for a successful resurgence was Norman, who sought to slow the roll on the Tiger Woods Hype Train. It was a long, circuitous route, Norman recently reminded reporters at his recent QBE Shootout, from Woods conceding at Liberty National in September that his playing career might be over to blasting drives past playing partner Justin Thomas at the Hero in the Bahamas.

“Everybody was wondering, you know, the speculation of him saying, ‘I may never play golf again,’ and then all of a sudden he says he’s hitting the ball 330 yards. Big difference from there to there, right?” Norman said. “I hope he manages his expectations more than everybody else’s expectations being [that] he’s going to come back and be Tiger of past. I think he still has a little bit of time on his side, but not a whole lot.”

Way to harsh our buzz, dude. Undeterred, we offer some educated guesses as to where and how Woods will try to hone his game for the Masters.

No mo’ Como

Given his wretched opening-round 77 and subsequent withdrawal with back spasms from February’s Dubai Desert Classic, we’re betting the next stop on the TW Comeback Tour will be closer to home, albeit across the country from his Jupiter, Fla., digs, at the Farmers Insurance Open.

Assuming Woods’ caddie Joe LaCava has even an inkling about where his boss will or won’t play next, Torrey Pines would seem a comfortable place for an official unveiling of his new, coach-less, back-friendly swing. (In an announcement last week, Woods related that he and Chris Como ended their three-year professional relationship, leaving him, “for now,” to continue to “relearn” his swing following fusion surgery.)

“I want to say a special thank you to Chris Como for all his past hard work,” Woods wrote in his annual holiday message on his website on Friday. “I’ll always be grateful for what he did for me and I know he’ll continue to be successful.”

Either as his own drill instructor or with a new hire tending to his swing (time for a Tiger-Butch reunion?) the Farmers (Jan. 25-28) appears to be a likely spot from which to catapult Woods’ rebound to official, full-field play.

Teeing it up at Torrey, where Woods owns eight wins including the 2008 U.S. Open, also seemed a natural launch pad for Tiger at the start of 2017 and, well, how’d that work out? The much-anticipated fireworks from Tiger soon fizzled out with a missed cut to go with a T80 and that glutes-related withdrawal in his last three starts in La Jolla.

Of course, that was then and this is now, and now — after contending and finishing with no pain at the Hero — Woods seems in far better health than he did for his last career revival attempt in January.

With way too little data to go on, questions remain regarding how Tiger would fare should he decide to make Torrey his first stop of the new year. How will his surgically repaired back hold up under the pressures of full-field events? How about his mental game? With a short game that remains somewhat sketchy, has he truly gotten over the chipping yips that dogged him during prior return efforts?

We’ll go out on a limb here and predict that, should we catch a glimpse of Tiger 4.0 as soon as next month, that he’ll make the cut at Torrey and give us all 72 holes on which to base future prognostications.

Riviera revisited

While reports indicated Woods had committed to play at Riviera, the Los Angeles track on which he made his tour debut, Woods wrote on Friday that a start there was not a gimme. He did, however, note that he will attend in some capacity the event (Genesis Open) that his foundation hosts.

“One way or another, I will be at Riviera Country Club in February for the Genesis Open,” said Woods, who even had to cancel his scheduled press conference there last year because of his back. “It’s such an historic site and the course will always have special meaning for me. That’s where it all started back in 1992 when I played in my first PGA Tour event at age 16. My foundation now runs the tournament and it will be great to return to my old stomping grounds.”

While there could be Tiger sightings at the Phoenix Open (Feb. 1-4) and/or the Pebble Beach Pro-Am (Feb. 8-11), it would be unusual for him to play so many tournaments in a row. He set out at the start of 2017 to play four times in five weeks — at Torrey and Riviera, in Dubai, and then home for the Honda Classic — but we know how that plan panned out, with Woods done for the year after just one round in the Middle East.

Woods has yet to make a public commitment to play the L.A. tournament, which he has not appeared in for 10 years after back spasms forced him to withdraw from the 2017 competition before it began.

Could this be the year Woods ends his victory drought on what is essentially a home course for the Cypress, Calif., native? Unlikely, given his record and lack of competitive reps.

“I’ve always loved playing [the course],” Woods told reporters ahead of last year’s tilt. “I’ve just never played it well.”

Sure, there were the missed cuts in 1992 and 1993 from the then-Nissan Open, when Tiger was still an amateur, and the WD in 2006 after shooting 69-74. But Woods has also recorded four top-7 finishes, including runner-up status in 1998 and 1999, as well as three top-18 results, so his Riviera record’s not that bad.

Home cookin’ at the Honda

Woods is likely to tee it up in his backyard at PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens, when the PGA Tour begins its Florida Swing with the Honda Classic (Feb. 22-25). He finished T2 in his second of just three Honda starts, in 2012, after giving chase but eventually falling short of Rory McIlroy.

If all goes well and he is still upright after more competitive rounds than he has played in a year, we would not be surprised if Tiger missed the cut at the difficult PGA National. That would not be optimum on the rollup to the Masters, but if Woods follows his usual pattern and plays Bay Hill, he could bounce back on another course that has yielded eight wins to the former world No. 1.

Missing Arnie

Should Woods put the Arnold Palmer Invitational (March 15-18) on his schedule, even he will likely play second fiddle to the late host of his eponymous tournament. Next year will mark the second time the tour will stop at Bay Hill since Palmer’s death in September 2016 but Tiger missed last year’s event and the emotion will probably still be fresh when Woods et al descend on Orlando.

Indeed, Woods has not teed it up at Arnie’s place since he won his third of five tour titles in his 2013 Player of the Year campaign. What a boost it would be to his confidence and his chances at the Masters three weeks later were Tiger to earn his 80th tour victory in honor of Arnold.

All roads lead to Augusta

Because wherever he plays and however he performs, for Tiger it’s all about getting his game Augusta-ready. Certainly, the oddsmakers are looking forward to Woods’ arrival at the Masters, as the wise guys dropped the odds of his prevailing at the men’s first major of the year from 100-1 prior to the Hero to its current 15-1, at least according to VegasInsider.com.

Even those backing Woods to get back to his field-conquering ways would doubtless scale back on those numbers a bit.

Harmon, for example, believes his bygone disciple — who, he noted, enters every event asserting, if not actually convinced, that he can end up on top — will hoist another trophy, but he declined to put another grand slam event in the win column just yet.

“Whether or not he can win a major championship again, we’ll have to wait and see,” Harmon said. “I think he can win on the regular tour and when he does that, I think he’ll have confidence when he comes to a major.”

With “the Rickies, the Justin Thomas’s, the Spieths” and other “pretty good” kids sharing the same goals, Harmon maintained the path to another Woods major win is especially difficult.

“I think we have to temper our optimism,” Harmon said, “because we see him play and we say, ‘Oh my gosh, he’s going to be like he was in 2000 and 2001.’”

As for the guy Woods still hopes to surpass on his way to 19 major championships, he’ll follow Tiger’s progress — but not from his couch.

“I’m not interested at all [in viewing Woods’ comeback],” Nicklaus told Golfweek earlier this month.

“Do I wish [Tiger] well? Yeah, but I’m not interested in watching him,” said Nicklaus. “I’ve watched him play golf for 20-something years, why would I want to go watch more? I don’t watch anybody play golf.”

Nicklaus, who has fielded Woods queries since Eldrick the Younger won his first Masters in 1997, recently came up with a different response than his traditional “Wish him well blah blah blah yada yada yada” rejoinder. Replying to a question during the tour’s annual tournament meetings about whether he would prefer to secure a 19th major trophy or see his grandson, Buffalo Bills tight end Nick O’Leary, catch the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl, the Golden Bear had ‘em rolling in the aisles with his riposte.

“Uh, right now I’d rather have a 19th major,” Nicklaus answered, according to the AP’s Doug Ferguson. “Tiger is back playing again.”

That he is, and he’s feeling fine, though he has yet to fill in his calendar for the coming year.

“I feel I’ve taken it to another level,” Woods wrote after being “very encouraged” by his Hero play that he hoped “was the start of something big.”

He said he was practicing and building up his strength to be able to handle a large workload going forward, though exactly where and when was still up in the air.

“I would love to play a full schedule in 2018. What that entails, including back-to-back events, I don’t know,” Woods said. “I just have to continue to work on my body and game and see where I pan out. I wish I knew where I was going to play and when I was going to play — it’s a lot easier to prep for that — but we really don’t know. This is all unchartered territory.”