Since no golfer has ever had – or ever will have – a higher profile, and since no high-profile player has ever had as many injuries as Tiger Woods, it’s no surprise that Tiger has had more high-profile comebacks than any other player in the history of the game.
Ben Hogan’s recovery from a near-fatal car crash in 1949 and subsequent return to professional golf may be the single greatest individual comeback in golfing annals, going on to win six majors including the US Open, 17 months after suffering life-threatening and potentially disabling injuries. But despite the severity of the injuries, Hogan was back on course less than a year later and was more or less a constant presence on tour before officially retiring in 1971.
By this writer’s count, this week’s comeback at the Hero World Challenge will be Tiger’s sixth time returning after a prolonged absence, but which of his four (the 2016 and 2017 comebacks are counted as one) previous competitive returns was the most impressive?
- 2009 – Tiger returns at the WGC Accenture Match Play
Who can forget Woods winning his 14th Major Championship in 2008 when defeating Rocco Mediate in what would be the final 18-hole U.S. Open Playoff we’ll ever see? At the time, beating Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 Major titles seemed a formality, especially given that Woods accomplished the feat of winning his 14th with a fractured left leg and torn ligaments in his left knee.
He was so far ahead in the world rankings that the near nine-month layoff wasn’t enough to see him unseated at the top, and the world number one returned to action the following March at the WGC Accenture Match Play. Despite routinely beating Australian Brendan Jones in the round of 64, Woods fell 4&2 to Tim Clark in the round of 32, the South African denying the golfing world a marquee last-16 match between the game’s biggest star and an up-and-coming teenager from Northern Ireland called Rory McIlroy.
Woods would go on to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill in his third start a month later, and would add The Memorial, the AT&T National, the Buick Open, the WGC Bridgestone, the BMW Championship and finally, the Australian Masters. He’d miss just one cut, that coming at the Open Championship at Turnberry where he played in worst of the conditions in Friday’s second round, and his T11 finish at the Deutsche Bank Championship was the only other time he was outside the top 10 in his 18 starts after the Match Play.
- 2010 – A humbled Tiger returns at The Masters after the scandal
Having undergone the kind of public shaming and embarrassment that was second only to that of his wife Elin, Woods announced that he was returning to competition at one of the toughest examinations in golf, Augusta National and The Masters.
The general consensus was that a player – even a player of Woods’ calibre – had no business arriving at Major Championship venues cold, rusty and under a burning spotlight. When Tiger had taken nine weeks off after the death of his father in 2006, he returned at Winged Foot for the US Open, he missed his first major championship cut since turning professional. Surely another ‘MC’ awaited at Augusta.
Ian Poulter said a top five was out of the question, he was written off by large sections of the media, and he was the subject of an astonishing public dressing down by Augusta National Chairman Billy Payne on the eve of the tournament.
Cold, rusty and under the burning spotlight, Woods still finished tied for fourth, with only Phil Mickelson, Lee Westwood and Anthony Kim shooting lower scores over the 72 holes.
Although he’d not win in 2010 and the aura of invincibility faded rapidly, to come to Augusta National under the scrutiny he did and still get himself into contention on the back nine on Sunday was a remarkable feat.
- 2017 – Following spinal fusion surgery, Tiger tees it up at the Hero in December
After showing glimpses of his former self at the 2015 Wyndham Championship, Tiger would compete just three times in the following two years, attempting a first comeback at the Hero World Challenge in 2016, missing the cut at Torrey Pines and then being forced to retire from the Dubai Desert Classic in early 2017.
Crippled with back issues, Tiger himself thought he was finished, telling Jack Nicklaus as much when they sat together at the Champions Dinner at Augusta National. Anxious to play, his withdrawal had only come on tournament week when the realisation that the pain was too great to even attempt to compete.
Later that month, in a desperate, last-ditch attempt to not only save his career, but to have some semblance of family life, Woods went under the knife for spinal fusion surgery, effectively welding the vertebrae together to relieve the stress and pain of unstable vertebrae sending agonising and debilitating shoots of pain through his entire body.
The whole world was watching when he made his return in The Bahamas for the Hero World Challenge in December. Could he? Would he? Well, he didn’t win, but he played 72 holes relatively pain free and played a full schedule in 2018, the highlight of which was his emotional victory at the Tour Championship, and he also came second at the PGA Championship and led the Open Championship mid-way through the final round.
The icing on the cake, however, would come in early 2019 when the man who two years prior had told Nicklaus he thought he was done, earned himself a fifth Green Jacket at Augusta, in what will go down in history as one of the most memorable Major Championships of all time.
- 2022 – More metal than man, Tiger returns at Augusta National and makes the cut
Though all the focus post-Tiger’s 2021 car accident was on his reconstructed ankle and right leg, the impact that an accident that severe had to have had on his back and already reconstructed left knee can’t be overstated.
There were several times during Tiger’s career that I’d come to terms with the fact that he’d played his last competitive round, but none more so than this. Often described as less man than machine as he routinely terminated the playing field during his heyday, the amount of metal in his body meant that this was now bordering on literal as well as metaphorical.
Fourteen months on, he was back in action and again, he wasn’t easing his way back into competition. If his five-month layoff following the scandal was enough to have many writing off his chances of making the cut at Augusta, who was giving him a chance of doing so 12 years later with a body that was barely fit for purpose.
Ok, he didn’t win, and he didn’t even come close, but he ended day one tied for 10th, 508 days after his last competitive round. To step back into that arena and make his 21st successive cut, beating the likes of Brooks Koepka and Jordan Spieth might just be the greatest Tiger accomplishment of them all.
And that’s saying something.
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