Whisper it – but we may just have our Tiger Woods back

Tiger Woods bowled into his press conference ahead of the 152nd Open and immediately it felt a million miles away from when he was doing was carrying out the same duties at the Masters in April.

There, he looked forlorn. His face was noticeably – and worryingly – puffy. He lacked energy. He looked like he would rather be anywhere else in the world.

But fast forward to Troon and it feels like we have a new Tiger. Or, perhaps more accurately, we have something a bit closer to the old Tiger back.

Draped in a white hoodie and cap combo, each emblazoned with that increasingly familiar Sun Day Red logo, and a pair of shorts, with that damaged right leg once again protected by a sleeve, Woods almost bound onto the stage as the notepad-clad masses waited to grill him on everything from the Ryder Cup captaincy to the ongoing negotiations surrounding the PGA Tour’s deal with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment fund.

But while we got nothing new on either of those particular topics, he seemed to be enjoying having an audience again.

The spring is back in his step. The shape is back in his face. The smile has returned. Woods looks and behaves like he is back to something resembling full health.

And when was the last time we could say that?

We’re not quite in This is Your Life territory yet – his blistering riposte to Colin Montgomerie’s calls to retire was evidence of that – but this felt less like an obligation and more like An Audience with Tiger Woods.

There were signs of the softer side of the 15-time major champion that we’ve come to know in recent years.

There were a couple of big laughs. Granted, that job is never easier than when every person in the room is lapping from your hand, but there was plenty of emotion, too.

When asked if he wanted the Ryder Cup captaincy in 2027 – when the biennial showdown heads to Ireland and, specifically, Adare Manor, the Limerick resort owned by his good friend JP McManus, who has battled a variety of health problems in recent years – he became notably pensive.

“I know it’s near and dear to his heart that he wants to be there for the event,” he said. “And I hope he is there. I hope he’s healthy and happy.”

The brief tangent about a Ryder Cup on the Emerald Isle also brought back memories of K Club for Woods, where he and Jim Furyk lost to Lee Westwood and Darren Clarke in an emotionally-charged fourballs match just weeks after the Northern Irishman lost his wife, Heather, to cancer.

“Darren and I have been very close,” he explained. “And it was tough to lose that match, but I couldn’t have been more happy and tearful myself for him for what that match meant and what the Irish crowd meant to him and the energy they brought to him during that difficult period.”

Then there’s Rory McIlroy. There was chatter that the PIF dealings had driven a wedge between the pair who had become so close over the past 15 years or so.

So when he was asked if he had contacted McIlroy after his US Open collapse, Woods’ response was somewhat surprising.

“I just sent him a nice text,” he revealed. “That was it. I waited a week before I sent it. I wanted to let it calm down. I know he was being besieged by a lot of different things going on, and I just let it cool down. Then I sent him a nice text, and that’s it.”

That delay, it turns out, caused McIlroy to miss it, but Woods was asked to reveal the contents of the message and, in perfect unison, a hundred heads leaned in to listen.

“Just basically, ‘I’m your friend.’ I know this is a difficult moment. We’ve all been there as champions. We all lose. Unfortunately, it just happened, and the raw emotion of it, it’s still there, and it’s going to be there for, I’m sure, some time. The faster he’s able to get back on a horse and get back into contention, like he did last week, the better it is for him.”

But it wasn’t all Tiger 2.0. There were signs of the OG with whom we grew up. Then, it used to intimidate. Now, though, it almost feels nostalgic.

He looked largely free of any kind of physical issues when he played 18 holes on Sunday, and videos of him hitting those oh-so-familiar stingers have surfaced on social media in the past few days have got us dreaming again.

But while he didn’t specifically namecheck “The Process”, we knew it was there in spirit.

“There’s a lot of times I felt nervous, shaky, uncomfortable, all of it,” he explained. “That’s part of it. That’s why you love it. That’s why we practice, to build up ourselves in that one uncomfortable situation and bury it.

“I work hard at it, and I’ve done it my entire life. I’ve worked hard to put myself there.

“You look at the highlights, I’ve missed plenty of putts. I’ve missed plenty of shots. Just like [Michael] Jordan, when they said how many shots have you taken? You see all the game-winning shots, but also he’s missed a ton of game-winning shots too. The thing is you still take the game-winning shot, and I still want the last putt.”

We were even treated to a glimpse of that steely, side-eye glance when he doesn’t like a particular question. Oh how we’ve missed that.

Why, for example, is he continuing to play through the pain?

“I’ll play as long as I can play and I feel like I can still win the event.”

But has that belief that he can still win wavered?

“No.”

Would you take an assistant role at the Ryder Cup if Keegan Bradley calls?

“He hasn’t asked me.”

The four seconds of silence that followed felt like a lifetime.

And, more importantly, it felt like we had our Tiger back.

Alex Perry is the Associate Editor of bunkered. A journalist for more than 20 years, he has been a golf industry stalwart for the majority of his career and, in a five-year spell at ESPN, covered every sporting event you can think of. He completed his own Grand Slam at the 2023 Masters, having fallen in love with the sport at his hometown club of Okehampton and on the links of nearby Bude & North Cornwall.

Associate Editor