I just had that feeling, you know? Like the feeling you had when Tiger Woods was stepping up to putts at Augusta, or Bay Hill, or Torrey Pines so many years ago. The only problem, he hadn’t done anything meaningful in golf since 2009. To be exact, it was 749 days and 26 starts, but I still had that feeling. After watching Tiger Woods play pretty well in Australia during the Australian Open and then even better the following week at The Presidents Cup, I thought this would be the week he broke his drought.
It was all going down during the Dallas Cowboys game, so I had to continually flip back and forth between Fox and NBC. It wasn’t until Zach Johnson drained a birdie putt on #16 to take a one shot lead that I had to put the Cowboys on hold for a bit and watch the final two holes of Chevron World Challenge. What Tiger Woods did on the final two hold seemed to thrill people on Twitter and the articles that followed all seemed to say he’s back.
This is how it happened. After Johnson made birdie on the par-5 16th to pull one shot ahead, Tiger Woods hit 9-iron on the par-3 17th to about 15 feet. After Zach missed his 20-footer, Tiger stepped up and sank his birdie putt to tie it up again. On the 18th, Tiger Woods hit the stinger 3-iron to the center of the fairway. Johnson then hit driver to the right edge of the fairway. The second shots were better than the previous hole. Johnson hit a beauty into about 12-feet, just to watch Woods hit his to about 8-feet. After Zach missed his12-foot putt, in true Tiger fashion, he drained the putt and let out his trademark fist pump and roar.
In all honesty, it was great to see. I have been waiting for this day for all of 2011. At the beginning of this year, I had Tiger Woods winning five times and two majors. In the end, I was completely wrong. But guess what, after today’s performance I will be picking Tiger to win at least that many in 2012, and maybe more.
[…] Masters and the following week at the Presidents Cup. He came back a few weeks later and held off Zack Johnson at his own tournament in California. But last week, after a great Saturday where he held a share […]