Deluded or not, Tiger Woods is box office — even at No.1294 in the world

Among a field featuring 19 of the top 20 players in the world, Woods was the undisputed star of the show in California.

Tiger Woods during his first round at The Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club. Picture: Getty Images

Serena Williams was contemplating retirement. Then she spoke to Tiger Woods. “He was adamant that I be a beast the same way he is,” she said. Ranked No.605 in the world, with one match win in 450 days, Williams duly played in the US Open last September and knocked out the second seed.

Woods, 47, is clinging on too. If he can convince Williams, then it is safe to assume he can convince himself. So ranked No.1294 in the world, with one top-30 finish in three years, he is making his umpteenth comeback – from injury, surgery, scandal, accident et al – at this week’s Genesis Invitational in Los Angeles.

And in typical Tiger fashion, he birdied the final three holes of his opening round to finish with a two-under-par 69.

“I happened to actually hit some good shots finally and made a couple putts,” Woods said. “Even though I had a little mishap at 10, I was able to fight back and get it going. It was a nice finish.”

Woods said his comfort level increased as the round wore on. “There’s nothing like come game time just the feeling of the butterflies and trying to calm all that stuff down,” he said.

He has not even walked 72 holes on this latest comeback trail, but said: “I would not have put myself out here if I didn’t think I could beat these guys.”

“I was trying to calm myself down all day, trying to figure out what the hell I’m doing out here because I haven’t played,” Woods said. “I probably should have appreciated the fans more than I did, but there was so much going on in my head trying to get the ball in the correct spots and the correct feels just because I haven’t done this in a while.”

This is a well-worn mantra and could be seen as a bit of a slight on players as good as Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm. Woods’s self-belief, or demigod delusion, is such that he probably thinks he can win the Genesis, the Oscar and the meat raffle before we get to Augusta National.

Last April, he was asked if he felt he could win the Masters in his first outing in 14 months after almost losing a leg in his LA car crash. “I do,” he said.

“If I feel like I can win, I’m going to play. If I feel like I can’t, you won’t see me out here.”

It was the same message at the US PGA Championship in May. He finished 47th at the Masters and pulled out after three rounds at Southern Hills. In three majors last season he was 34 over par from nine rounds.

Never write him off completely, not after what happened in 2019 and fleeting glimpses of quality last year, but the more interesting question now is not if Woods can win again, but if he will quit when he thinks he can’t.

Williams sounds like she is still wrestling with the knowledge that her talent is not quite burnt out. The post-surgery, post-pomp Andy Murray is going through misery and little miracles while knowing he is aspiring to lower-scale glory these days.

His reason for going on: “There’s a lot of people that feel I shouldn’t be playing, but I love tennis, and I love competing, and I feel like I can get better than where I am today.”

Woods insists it is only about the win for him. His media appearances usually tell us little but there was a moment on Tuesday when the igneous facade cracked.

It concerned the notion of enjoying playing if the victory is beyond him. He stuttered and looked briefly dumbfounded by the concept.

“I don’t, er, I have not come around to the idea of being … if I’m playing, I play to win,” he stumbled. “I know that players have played and they are ambassadors and try to grow the game. I can’t wrap my mind around that as a competitor. If I’m playing in the event I’m going to try and beat you.

“So I don’t understand that making the cut’s a great thing. If I entered the event, it’s always to get a ‘W’. There will come a point in time when my body will not allow me to do that anymore, and it’s probably sooner rather than later, but wrapping my head around that transition and the ambassador role, and just trying to be out here with the guys, that’s not in my DNA.”

Golf lends itself to long careers and if Phil Mickelson can win the US PGA Championship, aged 50, while outside the top 100, Woods no doubt believes there is more to come. A burning desire is to get another victory to move clear of Sam Snead on 82 PGA Tour wins. He likened that figure to LeBron James’s record-breaking NBA points tally, and if Jack Nicklaus’ major tally of 18 is safe, 83 is a tantalising motivator.

McIlroy was happy to imagine the post-playing future this weekend said he thought Woods would help “bring the game into the 21st Century”. He added: “I’m pretty sure he’ll be involved in the game. Making his presence felt doesn’t necessarily have to mean hitting the golf ball in tournament play.”

What is obvious is just how Woods’ stature still dwarfs every other figure in the game. It is nonsense really that he tops the PIP bonus pool, effectively a popularity contest, without lifting a club. “We are playing for second,” Dustin Johnson said last April, before decamping to LIV Golf.

Chad Mumm, the producer of the PGA Tour Netflix series Full Swing recalled how he followed Scheffler at the Masters last year in almost splendid isolation because everyone was watching Woods. Mumm could not get Woods for Full Swing, just as LIV Golf could not get him for a billion dollars.

After playing in the group ahead of Woods at the Masters, Cameron Smith said: “I found myself just watching him. You can’t not watch him. He’s unreal.” Williams said she had listened because: “My goodness, it’s Tiger Woods!”

Whether he is deluded or not, we should enjoy these increasingly rare travails. Plenty of players were mocked for taking the LIV money and not staying to fight for 72-hole titles. Woods gets mocked for battling on despite having a body suited to 54-hole golf.

That “sooner rather than later” phrase lingers and if he is true to his word, it will be interesting to see if another year like 2022, with three competitive appearances, one completed tournament and a driver used as a walking stick, brings retirement closer.

For now you feel Woods is still proving something to himself. Max Homa quipped last week that they would carry him down the hill on the 1st and up it on the 18th, and to steal a phrase from the American sportswriter Grantland Rice, you wonder if his legs will be strong enough to carry his heart for much longer.

In the meantime, wallow in the delusion.

The Times/AFP