Woods: Looking & Sounding Ripe For A Hopeful Return To Competition.

4 weeks ago by 0

After the delight and thrill in watching and listening to Tiger Woods over the past three days, the 15-time major champion looks and sounds ready to return to formal PGA Tour competition.

Woods and 15-year-old son Charlie brilliantly teamed in going so close to securing a maiden PNC Championship victory, losing out to a Bernhard Langer eagle putt as the first extra play-off hole on the host Ritz Carlton course in Orlando.

While a Team Tiger maiden success would have been such a great storyline, Tiger and son were gracious in defeat and whether or not it was the ‘Tiger factor’ but this last tournament of 2024 probably served-up the best golfing entertainment all year.

Double Masters winner Bubba Watson, who was a guest TV commentator earlier in the week at the lifeless ‘The Showdown’ , summed-up this year’s PNC Championship by going to his ‘X’ account to say:  “You know the @PNCchampionship is good for golf when I am watching it over the football games. Fun watching the excitement on the families faces!!”

While the men’s professional game remains divided and continues losing TV fans with every shot played, this year’s PNC Championship was a tremendous breath of fresh air.

Yes, it’s been running for 27-years but to see the interaction between young Charlie and his father when Charlie aced the fourth hole while just as brilliant was a similar sight some 45-minutes later when an equally over-joyed Padraig Harrington was also hugging son Paddy after he’d aced the eighth hole.

Video footage of the two aces, and just the second and third in the history of the event, has already attracted some three million ‘X’ views on social media  … 2.8 million for Charlie’s ace.

Though it was not all about Charlie and Paddy as there was the sight of 89-year-old Gary Player teaming with his grandson and snowy-haired Lee Trevino, who has contested all 27 PNCs, while there was pint-size Will McGee and the son of Annika Sorenstam who was a bundle of energy while how good was the sight ahead of the event when Tiger and John Daly warmly embraced each other on the steps of the clubhouse?

Yes, golf needed such an injection of enthusiasm and even more so just a handful of days post the lifeless ‘Showdown’ played in the cold and darkness of the Las Vegas countryside.

Of course, the sight for all 36-holes of watching Woods perform and being in contention right to the very last putt was must watch TV and didn’t he play well?

Albeit for his opening drive down the first on Sunday, Woods looked very much back to his consistent best and also providing surprise, and surprise the like we have not seen for so many years as evident when he remarkably found the green at the first on Sunday and then calmly walked-up and rolled-in the long birdie putt and just as we had come to expect for so long from the record-holding World No. 1.

Woods’ decision in choosing between shots not to ride in a motorised buggy was another strong, positive sign while over the course of the 55-holes, and that also included Friday’s pro-am, there was no hint of limping, no favouring his legs nor any other indication that his body was not right.

Though Woods would not give much away when asked a very last formal question of 2024 in yesterday’s post final round news conference.

“I’ll keep training, each and every day, doing the little things and keep progressing, and I’ll keep progressing forward into next year”, he said.

Woods had also commented in more detail on Friday when quizzed how he was preparing for his hopeful return to competition at PGA Tour level and having last enjoyed success all of 1,884 days ago at the 2019 ZoZo Championship.

“Preparing for competitive play is different”, he said. “That takes months, weeks. But it starts with each and every day. You just do the little things correctly, and they add up.

“From the moment you get up, just do all the little things, the mundane, the things you know you have to do. It adds up, and it compounds over — you may not see it over a week or a day, but over months, it adds up.

“Unfortunately I’ve gone through this process a number of times. It’s frustrating. It’s hard. But I have an amazing team, amazing support. But I have to do the little things on a daily basis and away from everybody. It’s hard”.

Fortunately, the next few days will be easy for Woods with Christmas and New Year celebrations and, of course, not forgetting his 49th birthday on December 30th.

 



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