Tiger Woods Can Handle This Father-Son Exhibition, but Future Return to PGA Tour Remains Uncertain

Tiger Woods teed up in a pro event for the first time since his car crash last February, and while it was nice for fans to see him again, it’s far too early to know if he’ll ever play the PGA Tour.

Golf fans are so excited to get a glimpse of Tiger Woods that it’s easy to forget this is only a glimpse. Enjoy it. But remember it is only a glimpse.

Woods said he would play in the PNC Championship “as a dad” with his son Charlie, as though he gets to make that choice. Of course it is great that he and Charlie get to play at all, let alone in a semi-serious event like the pro-and-family-member PNC. Woods could have died 10 months ago; now he is playing public golf with his son, at a level that seemed impossible after he crashed a car in South California. But as a dad? When Tiger Woods plays, he plays as Tiger Woods.

We don’t just see Charlie’s pop. We see the legend who won four straight majors, 15 overall, set records nobody has come close to approaching, and played golf better than anybody ever has. His 2019 Masters triumph only reinforced what golf fans have always suspected: Tiger Woods is capable of anything.

So there he was Friday, at the PNC Championship Pro-Am – an exhibition before an exhibition – and he looked … good. He seemed to be favoring his right leg, which he will probably always have to do now, but he compensated for it pretty well. Distance is one of the biggest questions about his game, but he hit his driver surprisingly far, and if he can do that ...

Don’t fill in the blanks just yet. There is so much more to competing on the PGA Tour than hitting some nice shots. Woods took a cart Friday at the Ritz-Carlton golf course in Orlando, and he said, “I couldn’t walk this golf course even right now, and it’s flat. I don’t have the endurance. My leg’s not quite right yet … I’m a long way away from playing tournament golf. This is: Hit, hop in a cart, and move about my business.”

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Would he consider asking the Tour for an exemption that allows him to use a cart?

“No,” he said. “Absolutely not. For a PGA Tour event? No. That’s not who I am. If I can’t play at that level, I can’t play at that level.”

Golf is a tease, no matter how well you play it. Weekend hacks hit one pure 7-iron or get hot for a few holes and get tricked into thinking that is their new normal. Woods can hit great shots right now. That doesn’t mean he can play golf at a world-class level on a difficult golf course under championship pressure.

“I’m just starting to get back into trying to play again,” he said. “I still have the hands, I still have the feel. The ball is just not quite flying as far as I’d like, or as far as I’m used to. It’s just not as powerful. I just don’t have the speed, you know? It is what it is. I can’t generate the speed I used to. The body’s not what it used to be.”

That last sentence is a crucial one: The body’s not what it used to be. Remember: Even before the car accident, Woods’s body wasn’t really working. In December 2020, he had a microdiscectomy procedure on his back to remove a pressurized disc fragment that was pinching a nerve – the 10th surgery he had on either his back or his knee.

Woods was the best player in the world at the 2019 Masters and again at that year’s Presidents Cup. But as he said many times, he had good days and bad days, and he didn’t know which was coming until he woke up. A month after winning that Masters, he showed up at Bethpage Black for the PGA Championship looking old, cold and worn-out. He barely practiced that week and missed the cut.

In his last 22 PGA Tour events, Woods finished in the top 10 six times, but he also missed four cuts. Now he is older and recovering from horrific injuries.

If anybody can come back from this, it’s Tiger. But it’s possible that nobody can.

One of the joys of golf is that you can play it for your whole life, or close to it. But playing is not the same as playing at an elite level. Brooks Koepka might be the best player in the world when he is healthy, but he hasn’t been healthy for the last couple years and it has shown. Woods is 14 years older and way, way more beaten up.

Tiger had it right, even if people don’t want to hear it: We see Tiger Woods, but we should see Charlie’s dad. That’s enough for now. It might be enough, period.