Tiger Woods’ return at the 2022 Masters was certainly one of the moments of the 12 months.
Getty photographs/Darren Riehl graphic
Remember after we thought a pandemic season two years in the past was loopy? Man, 2022 had all of it. The return of Tiger Woods, the founding of a controversial golf league, the disappearance (and reappearance) of certainly one of golf’s most beloved figures and a lot extra. But now let’s take a breath. Here, we’ll look again (and look forward) at the 10 most memorable moments of 2022.
No. 10: Nelly Korda’s rollercoaster 12 months ended with promise for 2023
No. 9: How Tom Kim stole the present at the Presidents Cup
No. 8: How Lydia Ko rediscovered her sport in 2022
No. 7: Rory McIlroy was an absolute power
No. 6: Scottie Scheffler is a serious champ
No. 5: Cam Smith’s breakout (and tumultuous) 12 months
No. 4: What occurred to Phil Mickelson?
No. 3: This 12 months’s Tiger Woods comeback was nothing like the others
It’s straightforward to look again at the totality of Tiger Woods’ 2022 {golfing} calendar and see it as a misplaced 12 months.
It ended the method 2021 ended, in any case: Woods wasn’t wholesome sufficient to tee it up at the Hero World Challenge however did handle to tee it up with the help of a cart in a feel-good season finale at the PNC Championship.
There have been loads of disappointments. Woods didn’t tee it up in any PGA Tour occasions outdoors of the majors. He missed the U.S. Open altogether. And the occasion he noticed as his greatest likelihood to contend — the Open at St. Andrews — started together with his ball in a divot and ended with an emotional missed lower.
But all of that obscures the starting of Woods’ 12 months. This 12 months’s Masters feels like a very long time in the past due to all that’s occurred since. It wasn’t essentially a less complicated time — you’ll recall Phil Mickelson’s mysterious absence, amongst different issues — however like all different springtime Masters, it was a match about beginnings. The starting of the golf season. The starting of your golf season, at dwelling. And the starting of the remainder of Tiger Woods’ profession.
It’s straightforward to neglect now, however going into the Masters it nonetheless felt like an extended shot that he’d be capable to play the occasion. Woods has spent practically a decade and a half in a cycle of disappearances and comebacks, so we’re used to infinite hypothesis about his match begins. But this setback — a horrific automotive crash some 14 months earlier than during which he’d shattered his foot — had left an unsure street to restoration. Our expectations for Woods have at all times been overinflated, however in the lead-up to Augusta, for the first time in his profession, it felt as if something we bought from Woods on a golf course ever once more could be pure bonus.
It wasn’t till the week earlier than the match, when Woods made a scouting mission to check out his capacity to stroll Augusta, that followers grew cautiously optimistic. It’s a greater Masters with Woods in the area, in any case. And whereas he didn’t win the match, he impressed in numerous methods. It was nonetheless certainly one of the moments of the 12 months.
Below you’ll discover the story I wrote from the finish of Woods’ week, urging us to understand the second earlier than we moved on to all the relaxation — together with his cost at the lower line at the PGA and that magical stroll at St. Andrews. And whereas there are causes to be optimistic for his 2023 (Ball pace is up! Plantar fasciitis is beatable! He’s making strikes behind the scenes!) it feels like a superb time of 12 months to mirror on that second yet another time:
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AUGUSTA, Ga. — Before the breathless hypothesis about what’s subsequent, earlier than we see if his jet is stopping for apply rounds in Tulsa, earlier than we begin mapping out his path to victory at St. Andrews, let’s take a second to understand what Tiger Woods did this week at Augusta National.
How do you measure this Masters for Woods? The numbers that specify his outcome are insufficient in telling its story. Solo forty seventh. A career-highest 13 over par. Back-to-back 78s on the weekend. One quantity comes nearer — his twenty second consecutive made lower at Augusta — however nonetheless falls quick. What did it imply to Woods himself, and to these round him, and to these of us watching alongside? That’s a lot more durable to quantify.
Woods limped down the 14th fairway on Sunday alongside enjoying companion Jon Rahm. He was canted barely ahead, the stride of a person with a fused again whose physique is made partly of metallic. He was utilizing his driver as one thing of a climbing pole, serving to to propel himself ahead, in clear discomfort. He was already three over par for his spherical, 10 over par for the match. But nonetheless combating.
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Woods had an enormous gallery in tow, together with one significantly enthusiastic pocket of supporters on the rope line, all wearing pink and black. Tiger colours. They cheered loudly as Woods glided by, the method a household may root on their father at a half-marathon. One of them requested her pals if she ought to deploy her loud whistle. She went for it. They cheered louder.
Woods’ daughter Sam and girlfriend Erica Herman have been amongst that group. Tiger has harassed all week that solely these closest to him may perceive the extent of his combat again. Sam agreed.
“It’s miraculous,” she mentioned of this week’s begin. “It shouldn’t be happening.”
“I mean, nothing ever surprises me about him,” Herman mentioned. “But he’d just worked so hard to be here, that was the one thing I knew: once he got here, he wasn’t going to go home.”
She used the similar phrases that Woods has all week. Appreciative. Thankful.
“This feels like a home game for him,” she mentioned. “This has been his home turf for so long. Everybody around the club knows him. They know us now, too.”
“Grandma’s famous here,” Sam added, referring to Tiger’s mom Kultida. “She knows everybody.”
In the background, Woods confronted down a 37-foot bogey putt. He took his time mulling it over. Every shot counts the similar, even in the event you’re 20 off the lead. He poured it in. The crowd went wild.
Nearby, an athletic man in a crisp Augusta National polo took in the motion. It was Bryson DeChambeau. He’d missed the lower however caught round to observe Woods. This isn’t simply uncommon; it by no means occurs. Pros don’t watch different professionals play golf. What was DeChambeau doing there? He shrugged.
“I came out to support the best ever,” he mentioned. “It’s really cool — I don’t know how many chances I’ll get to do something like this.”
The man is a magnet. This place is a magnet. Once you’re right here, you don’t wish to depart. Once you permit, you wish to come again.
100 miles away at his dwelling in Bluffton, S.C., Johnny Pruitt was making an attempt to make sense of all of it.
“I’ve got goosebumps just thinking about what he’s doing right now,” he mentioned on Sunday afternoon as Woods completed up his ultimate spherical.
When is involves miracles at Augusta National, Pruitt is one thing of an knowledgeable. He was standing at Amen Corner in 2018 when his coronary heart failed, sending him into main cardiac arrest. He turned blue. His coronary heart stopped. By the time he bought correct medical consideration, he’d gone minutes with no pulse. To quote Pruitt himself: “I was very much not alive.”
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Through exhaustive medical procedures and sheer power of will, Pruitt pulled by way of. The subsequent 12 months he was again at Augusta, strolling fastidiously, celebrating the anniversary of his demise. Woods was again, too, finishing a miraculous comeback by profitable his fifth inexperienced jacket. Pruitt has by no means met Woods, however he marks their progress collectively. He couldn’t consider that 2019 win. He couldn’t consider Woods got here again this 12 months, both.
“I don’t know what his dad taught him about mind over body but there’s something else there that would make you that passionate and that determined to do what he does,” Pruitt mentioned. He will get emotional, speaking about Woods. That’s certainly one of Tiger’s hallmarks: He conjures up emotion. “That’s the thing, right? He’s not in it for the money,” Pruit continued. “He doesn’t have to do this.”
He doesn’t need to. But one thing compelled Woods to battle again for this 12 months’s Masters. Despite the indisputable fact that he’s 46 years previous. Despite the indisputable fact that he’s already arguably the best golfer in historical past. Despite the indisputable fact that he’s price lots of of tens of millions of {dollars}. And regardless of the indisputable fact that 14 months in the past he was on an working desk following a horrific automotive crash, with a “50/50 chance” of shedding his leg.
After his spherical, Woods was self-deprecating about his efficiency however appeared to grasp the gravity of his presence. He was already pondering large image. He talked about how a lot the match has meant to his complete household. He talked about what it meant that he’d teed it up. He acknowledged his place in the match’s complicated historical past.
“You go back to the year I was born, that was the year that the first black man played in the Masters, Lee Elder,” he mentioned. “He was an honorary starter last year. He was there when I won in ’97. Twenty-five years later, here I am playing again.”
Asked about simply how a lot he’d been by way of to get again so far, Woods repeated a line we’ve heard all through the week.
“I don’t think people really understand,” he mentioned. “The people who are close to me understand. They’ve seen it. Some of the players who are close to me have seen some of the pictures and the things that I have had to endure. They appreciate it probably more than anyone else because they know what it takes to do this out here at this level.”
That marks an unlimited distinction for this model of Tiger Woods. He desires us to grasp, whilst he is aware of we will’t and gained’t. He’s not taking this as a right. We shouldn’t, both.
Woods retains educating us classes at Augusta National. The final time he performed the Masters, he doomed his probabilities at a prime end when he made 10 at the par-3 twelfth. Instead of tapping out he went again to work and churned out 5 birdies in his ultimate six holes, his best-ever end to a spherical at Augusta.
This 12 months’s complete look was a lesson in perseverance. It was a lesson in, nicely, Woods can clarify it higher.
“I fight each and every day,” he mentioned, explaining the instance he’s hoping to set. “Each and every day is a challenge. Each and every day presents its own different challenges for all of us. I wake up and start the fight all over again.”
He limped off the podium. He hugged his household. It was time to relaxation.
The hypothesis began earlier than Woods left property. The PGA at Southern Hills is a perhaps. Ditto for the U.S. Open at Brookline. Woods has the Open Championship at St. Andrews circled on his calendar. “I am looking forward to St. Andrews,” he instructed Sky Sports. “That is something that is near and dear to my heart. I’ve won two Opens there, it’s the home of golf, and it’s my favorite golf course in the world. So I will be there for that one.”
In time, all issues. Woods made his method by way of the clubhouse, his mom beside him, his son in entrance of him, scores of diehard followers cheering whilst he left their line of sight.
LaCava lingered for a second, gazing out over the property after which again at the assembled media. He raised a hand.
“Be good, guys,” he mentioned. “We’ll see you down the road.”
Things gained’t ever be the similar. Not Woods’ physique. Not his schedule. Not his golf sport. He’ll be again nonetheless.
That’s the lesson.
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