Written by Steve DiMeglio at USAToday.com
Rickie Fowler walked onto the range Sunday at Albany Golf Club and spoke for a majority of golf fans worldwide.
“Nice to see the red shirt on Sunday again.”
Tiger Woods just smiled in his famous Sunday wardrobe.
Get used to seeing it again. Woods is back — as long as his back holds up.
His return to competitive golf after an absence of nearly 16 months — which included two surgeries to his troublesome back — was a success on nearly all counts as the positives far outweighed the negatives. This despite the final-round 76 and the final-hole double bogey as he finished 15th in the elite 17-man field, 14 shots behind Hideki Matsuyama, who won at 18 under and was two clear of Henrik Stenson. It was Matsuyama’s fourth victory in five starts and he was a staggering 90 under during that stretch.
Woods played 72 holes without issue and unleashed some max effort swings when he wanted to. The club twirls were back. His swing was “awesome,” as more than one player said, as they emphasized the speed and power and effortless action Woods presented. His haunting chipping woes are gone. He made 24 birdies – against six double bogeys and eight bogeys – and shot 73-65-70-76 to finish at 4 under.
“Getting back to this point is beyond anything that I’ve ever experienced in my lifetime,” Woods said. “The pain issues that I had, it was rough. … Quite frankly there were some pretty dire times where I just couldn’t move.
“So big picture? It feels good. It feels good to be back out here playing again, competing and trying to beat the best players in the world. I missed it.”
While he gave every indication that good stuff is at hand, Woods knows there’s plenty of work to do. He likely won’t play again for at least seven weeks, perhaps making his 2017 debut in the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines the last week of January.
“I felt like I did some really positive things, I really did,” Woods said. “I’m pleased about that and I just need to clean it up. I made a lot of silly mistakes. … I’m going to take two weeks off here, get my weight back up, get everything organized, then start the process of testing, training and getting a feel of what is best for me. It was nice to have my speed back, hit some balls out there with some aggression again and not have to worry about anything.”
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