AUGUSTA, Ga. – When he was a kid practicing his chips and putts, Tiger Woods listened to music on a portable CD player.
When he won his first tournament, he beat Davis Love III using a driver made of persimmon wood, a style you’re now more likely to find in an antique store than anywhere near a course.
When he won his first Masters, current world No. 4 golfer Jordan Spieth was, in Woods’ words, “still in diapers.”
Tough as it is to believe, the sun is setting on Woods’ generation. The new breed of golfer is bigger and stronger. The new style of golf course stretches longer. The new regard inside the ropes for Woods is merely respect, not awe, and certainly not fear.
On Tuesday afternoon, Woods, sporting an azalea-pink Nike shirt and an unworried grin, made his first public appearance since walking off the course at Torrey Pines two months ago. If Woods’ life were a “Rocky” movie, we’d be at the start of the third act. The montage has just ended, and now the old dog is back in the ring for One More Shot At The Title.
“I worked my ass off,” Woods said, and while his routine to return to playing shape didn’t exactly involve hauling logs across a Siberian snowscape, he was nonetheless playing , in his words, “sunup to sundown.”
“Every day the sun came up,” Woods said, “and by the end of the day, I should be a better player. The goal was to get better incrementally.”
Cue the ‘80s training montage music. “People would never understand how much I put into it to come back,” Woods said. “Whenever I had free time, I’d be playing. When the kids were asleep, I’d be doing it. When the kids were at school, I’d be doing it.”
There were setbacks. Woods acknowledged that there were “a few clubs that flew, that slipped out of my hand. Traveled a pretty good distance, too,” he grinned. “I’d have moments where it would come, where I’d be dialed in for 10 minutes and then lose it for an hour. Then I’d have an hour of having it and 10 minutes of losing it. I got to the point where it was just there.”
“It,” of course, being that elusive, ephemeral competitive ability – not spirit, ability – that’s seemed beyond Woods’ grasp these last 18 months. So here we are, back at Augusta, back at the site of so many of Woods’ finest moments. The bell is ringing, and if this isn't Woods' final shot at rehabbing his game, that day is now within sight.
He’s got one hell of a challenge ahead of him. Start with the fact that in 2015, he’s played exactly two rounds and 11 holes of competitive golf. He hasn’t won a tournament of any stripe since August 2013, and he’s going on seven years without a major and ten years without a fourth green jacket. He’s ranked 104th in the world, a free-fall plummet
Getting back to anything approaching tournament-winning form would be difficult in and of itself. But combine Woods’ fall from grace with other golfers’ ascent, and this isn’t like climbing a mountain. This is like scaling a skyscraper as Spieth, Rory McIlroy and others continue to build ever-higher floors above him.
Woods says he'll win, of course. What else is he going to say? From the moment he first drove up Magnolia Lane, he wasn't satisfied with just making the field. But this is a very different world than 1997, even if the azaleas and the clubhouse remain the same.
"The game has gotten bigger," Woods said. "Competing is stil the same. I’m trying to beat everyone out there. That hasn’t changed."
He talks like he believes he can. He'd have to understand if few others do.
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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter.
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