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Tiger Woods raised his putter in celebration, so sure was he that his 40-foot birdie effort would be swallowed by the cup on the third hole of his final round of the Hero World Challenge. When the ball came up short, Woods dropped the club.
Woods closed with a four-over-par 76 at Albany Golf Club to finish 15th in a 17-man field at four-under 284, 14 strokes behind the wire-to-wire winner, Hideki Matsuyama. Before the event, when the prevailing question was whether Woods’s balky back would allow him to finish four rounds, that result would have been seen as an unqualified success.
But by Sunday, the 40-year-old Woods had raised expectations significantly, coming away with a birdie on 19 holes across the first three rounds –– Matsuyama had a birdie or better on only three more holes in the same span — and briefly getting to 11 under par in his third round. As Woods warmed up for his final 18, some of the fans who had come to witness his return engaged in their own premature celebrations, giddily wondering out loud how often he might win in 2017.
Over the final 18 holes, a persistent wind whipped the facade off Woods’ game. He struggled off the tee, with his irons and around the greens.
Anyone in need of a reality check only had to watch Woods play the par-five, 595-yard sixth hole. After his first two shots, Woods was short of the green. He bladed his next shot, chunked his fourth, chipped to six feet and missed the putt, carding a seven.
Woods made double bogeys on two par-5s and was worse than par on two of the five par-5s for the week.
“I played the par 5s, quite frankly, awful,” Woods said. “I felt like I did some really positive things. I’m pleased about that. I just need to clean it up.”
Major takeaway
The Albany Golf Club course, with its tightly mowed areas around the greens, provided a gentle test for Woods, who has struggled with his short game the past two years. The main takeaway from Woods’ return to golf after a 466-day absence was that his good shots were very good and his misses horrid.
The bad shots were to be expected after so much time away from competition. Woods’ strength has always been his mind, and he showed on Sunday that he could still will his way around a course by reeling off three consecutive birdies after the double bogey at No six.
“It’s been phenomenal to watch him this week,” NBC golf analyst David Feherty said. “It’s too good to be true. The whole world has been holding its breath.”
The golf world can exhale now. “You never know what’s going to happen,” Woods’ caddie, Joe LaCava, said,. “But he looks good walking, he looks good over the ball, and he looks good when he’s done playing, so those are all positives.”
Still, Woods has much work left to do if he wants to challenge millennials like the 24-year-old Matsuyama, who closed with a 73.
He is 89-under in his last 24 rounds and has won four of his last five starts.
"Only Tiger could take a year and a half off and put up the numbers that he's putting up this week,.” "I don't care how many strokes I'm leading over him, I still worry about him, fear him,” Matsuyama had said last week.
Jordan Spieth, 23, who won the Hero World Challenge in 2014 and finished tied for sixth this year, suggested that Woods’ next step forward would be playing in back-to-back weeks, which he did just twice in the 2013-14 and 2014-15 seasons.
"What looks like is happening is he's being patient, he's making a return, he's confident in his game," Spieth, 23, told reporters about the 40-year-old legend. "That's really exciting for us and for golf.”
"He's a guy that can continue to have an influence on the golf course for players ... he can truly help get the numbers back up in golf."
Good signs
At the 2014 Hero World Challenge, held in Florida, Spieth finished 26 strokes ahead of Woods, who tied for 17th in the 18-player field. Woods, then returning from a four-month layoff to rest his back, said: “The good sign is that I played four straight days, was in no pain, and I was able to hit the golf ball as hard as I wanted to.”
Nine months after that positive assessment, Woods had back surgery, precipitating the longest layoff of his 21-year pro career. So when Woods said that he felt good, free of pain, it could not be taken as absolute reassurance.
The plan now, Woods said, is to play a full schedule, which for him would be 15 to 20 events in 2017. “We’re going to be smart about it,” Woods said.
His next competitive start — and his first in a full-field event with a cut since August 2015 — should come next month, in the United Arab Emirates or at the PGA Tour stop in San Diego.
Henrik Stenson won this year’s British Open three months after his 40th birthday, and Jim Furyk, 46, carded a 58 in August, so Woods is by no means too old or decrepit to add to his 79 PGA Tour victories.
But winning nine times in a season, as he did in 2000, when he was Matsuyama’s age, or even five times, as Woods did in 2013, seems unimaginable for him now.
“I think it would be hard, where golf is at right now, to be as dominant as Tiger was,” Stenson said. “Even if Tiger plays as good as he did in 2000.”
Woods got through this weekend, which is a step in the right direction. “Big picture?” Woods said with a smile. “It feels good to be back out here playing again and competing and trying to beat the best players in the world.”