Tiger Woods makes his long-awaited and much-anticipated return to professional golf this week at the Hero World Challenge. Speaking ahead of the event, as reported by USA TODAY‘s Steve DiMeglio, he says he’s “nervous” but “ready to go.”
Will Tiger’s comeback be for real? There’s obviously no way to tell at the moment, but it won’t be that way for long. All will start to become clear when we tees off on Thursday, and if his comeback is indeed for real, he’ll do these three very simple and easy-to-tell things.
AFP
1. Stay Around Par
There is no cut this week at the Hero World Challenge, and the course is hardly the most taxing, so hovering around or just under par seems like a fair goal for a man who hasn’t made a competitive start in more than a year. There’ll be plenty of rust, but that’s fine. All Tiger needs to do is avoid bombing-out. We’ll give him a pass for the odd scrappy shot or missed putt; it’s the multiple rounds in the mid-70s that are inexcusable.
2. Stay Healthy
Golf fans will have their eyes peeled for any hints Tiger is uncomfortable or still nursing an injury. It’s something he’s done before and it’s never worked. He says he’s learned, so now is the time to prove it.
Tiger simply can’t swallow another injury. He needs to compensate for his aging body. If he thinks he can be 25 year-old Tiger Woods again, swinging out of his shoes on every drive, then his last chance of a comeback will be doomed from the start.
Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports
3. No Two-Way Misses
It was a problem for Tiger even when he was healthy and playing well in 2013, and it in part stemmed from Tiger trying to swing too hard (see No. 2). Missing shots is inevitable in golf; it’s controlling those misses that holds the key. If Tiger misses a bunch of fairways but they almost always end up in the right rough, for example, that’s far more encouraging than him hitting a few more fairways but missing in both the left and right rough.
One-way misses are manageable: You can aim further left in the short term, for example, and it means that they’re usually being caused by one swing kink that can be ironed out. After a long layoff, that’s a problem that Tiger Woods would kill to have.
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