Rarely has a top-10 finish seemed so much like a victory. Playing in his ultra-eagerly-awaited first competitive golf tournament since early February, Tiger Woods entered the invitational Hero World Challenge with global expectations on edge but showed there was no need for concern – at least in the immediate aftermath of the tournament.
As Rickie Fowler reeled off seven consecutive birdies in a front-nine 28 and eventually won by four shots, Woods finished all four rounds (considered a success in itself) and was tied for ninth in the middle of the 18-player field following rounds of 69-68-75-68.
That might have been 10 strokes behind Fowler, who closed with a 61 for an 18-under 207 and beat overnight leader Charley Hoffman into second place by four shots, with Tommy Fleetwood and Justin Spieth another stroke back joint third, but it was – arguably – better than most people expected. Apart from Tiger himself – perhaps.
“I'm excited,” he said after his round on Sunday. “I had the adrenaline going and overall I'm very pleased. I knew I was going to be able to play all four rounds, that wasn't going to be an issue. The issue was how was my scoring going to be, how was my feel, how am I going to get used to the adrenaline in my system for the first time in a while. That took a little bit of time. I was still good with my irons, I drove it pretty good all week, made some good putts. I showed some good signs, I hit some really good shots out there and (it’s) a bright future.”
Along the way he beat 2017 FedExCup champion Justin Thomas and world number one Dustin Johnson, climbed from 1199th in the world rankings to 668th, and showed speed and power with his full swings – seemingly without any discomfort despite a total of four back surgeries since 2013.
The next step is a return to the U.S. PGA Tour in 2018 (this was a non-official event), and there is speculation his first full-field Tour event could be the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in late January, the last place Woods played in an official Tour tournament. He has won the event seven times and also collected his last major, the 2008 U.S. Open, at the same venue.
Tiger himself said, “We're going to sit down, we'll figure it out, where I'm going to start, how much I'm going to play, rest periods, training cycles, the whole nine yards. My expectations are we'll be playing next year. How many, where, I don't know yet, but we'll figure it out.”
In the meantime, he will celebrate his 42nd birthday on 30 December, and plans to continue his recent trend of playing money games against Fowler, Justin Thomas and other young stars from the Tour.
“I'm sure the guys will have some denominations they want to play for,” Woods said. “JT was already alluding to that as we were playing today so when we go home these guys are awesome, they want to play almost every day. They want to compete, they want to see me back out there, and it's really nice to have that type of camaraderie.”
“I think he sharpened me up a little bit,” Fowler said. “If his back holds up and he keeps swinging the way he does, there's no doubt that he can go out and win. Tiger's still going to have that similar effect when you see his name on the board coming down the last nine holes and being in the mix. You know he's not scared. He's done it, he's been there before.
“I haven't played up against him in his prime. I think we're all looking forward to having the chance to play with Tiger down the stretch. I wouldn't say guys are scared. I think they're more excited about it and having him back and having the chance to play against Tiger, and we want to see him play well. It's only better for our game.”
Fowler himself is hoping the Hero victory will be just the right launchpad for a successful 2018 season – and maybe that elusive first major.
The 28-year-old has seven top-five results in majors without a win including his incredible 2014 when he was T5-T2-T2-T3 across the four Grand Slams. He also has a relatively modest tally of just four official PGA Tour titles – hampered by 12 runner-ups and seven thirds.
“If you look at winning as your only sense of success, you're going to deal with failure a lot,” explained Fowler. “There's a lot of times where you could pick it apart and last year I could have gotten down on myself a handful of times for not getting the job done or not winning more, but it was a fun year. Being in contention with your buddies and some of the best players in the world, if you keep doing that trophies will fall into place.”
Over the holiday break he will continue his money games against Tiger Woods and others at their Medalist base in Florida. “I think he (Woods) sharpened me up a little bit. I've gotten a little scared of how good he was playing at home, thought I needed to start playing a little bit better or something. There's no better way than putting yourself against guys that you're going to be playing with, putting yourself in game‑time situations.”
