Dan Hicks of NBC Sports described Tiger Woods’ victory at the Tour Championship in 2018 as ‘the most improbable comeback in sports history’ moments before the great man tapped in the winning putt at East Lake.
Minutes before that, Woods, dressed in his Sunday red, split the 72nd fairway playing alongside Rory McIlroy, who was a passenger with the best seat in the house.
A feverish express of patrons steamed down the short grass behind him. He became the pied piper of Atlanta as the ropes and stewards succumbed to the moment, a scene not witnessed since the days of peak Arnold Palmer – or the Beatles.
Palmer was affectionately named ‘The King’ by fans and media alike, but this procession was something else. Twelve months earlier, the idea that Woods was playing in a tournament meant for the best 30 players across an entire PGA Tour season and winning it, was not a possibility in any form.
Woods fell outside of the top 1,000 players in the world after spinal fusion surgery at one stage. In May 2017, he was arrested when officers found him in a daze behind the wheel of his Mercedes Benz, which he later attributed to an unexpected reaction to medication he was taking.
He went on to plead guilty to reckless driving. As part of his plea bargain, he had to attend a drug treatment programme and undergo drug testing. The images of the once-untouchable athlete being physically guided by police away from his abandoned vehicle were surreal.
The 42-year-old had four surgeries on his back in four years and hadn’t won on the PGA Tour since 2013 prior to the Tour Championship. In September 2017, he admitted he didn’t know what his future held and pondered that he may never return to professional golf.
He doubted that he could sit in a buggy and act as a vice-captain to the US Presidents Cup team at Liberty National in New Jersey. When you are concerned about your ability to sit down for a week, let alone play golf, the last thing on your mind is to play a full schedule in the following year.
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Tiger Woods: Tour Championship win of 2018 looked impossible 12 months before
Woods played one PGA Tour event in 2017, missing the cut at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines, the scene of his most recent major victory at that point, back in 2008. A year later, he finished in the top 20 of the same event and would go on to play 18 times.
In both PGA Tour victories and career majors, he was still eclipsed by Sam Snead and Jack Nicklaus respectively. He top-fived at the Valspar Championship and at Arnie’s place in Bay Hill. Woods was picking up the scent of the winner’s circle again.
He led the Open Championship at Carnoustie with eight holes left, giving spectators a Tiger rush they thought they’d never see again. He came second at the PGA Championship, carding a final-round 64 to push a rampant Brooks Koepka all the way.
Maybe the Tour Championship wasn’t the win the fans wanted from Woods, but the army that formed following him on that magical September Sunday created the best image of his illustrious career outside of the majors.
“I had a hard time not crying coming up the last hole,” he said.
“The people who are close to me saw the struggles and what I was going through, and some of the players that I’m pretty close to, they’ve really helped throughout this process. Their support and some of those things that they said coming off that last green meant a lot.
“Probably the low point was not knowing if I’d ever be able to live pain-free again. Am I going to be able to sit, stand, walk, lay down without feeling the pain that I was in?” he asked.
“I just didn’t want to live that way. This is how the rest of my life is going to be? It’s going to be a tough rest of my life. I was beyond playing. I couldn’t sit. I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t lay down without feeling the pain in my back and my leg. That was a pretty low point for a very long time.”
Woods edged closer to Snead with win number 80 on the tour. While he won the season-ending finale, it was Justin Rose who clung on to win the season-long points list and lift the FedEx Cup, becoming the first Englishman to do so.
“All year long he’s looked like winning,” Rose said of Tiger. “He’s played some great golf, and he’s looked world-class again. It was just a matter of time and I’m so happy for him.”
Hicks’ commentary would be proven wrong seven months later. Woods, who had been on the brink of paralysis and a life of watching golf instead of playing it, won the Masters in the following April, attaching himself to the heels of both Snead and Nicklaus. In 2019, Woods tied Snead on 82 PGA Tour trophies when he claimed the Zozo Championship.
We knew he was super-human. His father Earl knew before anyone else. But winning the Tour Championship 12 years after his father’s death, and then a fifth Green Jacket shortly after, took Woods into another realm of immortality that maybe Earl wouldn’t have dreamt of.
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A career of pure excellence has evolved into hardy resilience and this was personified right here, six years ago.
“Pops would be very proud. He’d be very proud of the way I went out today under tough conditions.”
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