Almost eleven years after his last major win, Tiger Woods is back. During those previous years, Tiger went through various surgeries, including four on his back, one on his ACL, and one on a damaged nerve. Despite being ranked as low as 1,200th in the world last year, Woods persisted in his efforts to improve as a player. In October of 2017, Woods, who hadn’t competed professionally in a year, posted a video of him hitting full swings, blowing the Internet away. It was later revealed that this was Woods’ first time with a full swing since his surgery. Months after the video, Tiger revealed he would be playing in the Bahamas for the Hero World Challenge in January. Despite placing seventeenth, Tiger was hopeful that he would get back to his winning ways.  After improving upon his outcomes in his next few tournaments, it all came together for Woods during the Tour Championship at the historic East Lake Golf Club. After staying in the hunt during the week, a rejuvenated Tiger began to dominate on the weekend. As he strolled down the eighteenth hole on Sunday, thousands of fans lined the green to watch him celebrate his first win in a dozen years.

     While this win surely relieved Tiger some of the weight on his back, a great deal of pressure concerning the upcoming season remained. When the 2019 Masters rolled around, it seemed that Tiger could finally win a major match again.  As he teed off on Thursday, it was clear that he was a different person –  he wasn’t going to let the injuries get the best of him. After a strong first three days, Tiger went into Sunday in a place he hadn’t been in a long time: in competition to win in a major. As Tiger teed off, toting his classic Sunday red, the uproar of the crowd let everyone know who the fans were rooting for. Spurred by the emotion of the crowd, Tiger came out firing, and took advantage of some less than optimal play by the other players. Walking down the 18th green with the notion that his painful drought was almost over, an uproar came over the crowd, as the camera moved to Tiger’s family, just like it did two decades before. Through all of the controversy, surgeries, and accidents, Tiger fought back against the naysayers and was finally ready to prove them wrong. As Tiger walked up to his final putt, a huge grin came across his face, as he was so relieved that he could finally let the burden of losing go away. When the putt finally dropped, the crowd went wild as the cameras shook from the craziness of crowd. During a conversation, a tear fell off of Tigers face as his family embraced him. Reflecting on this instance, Timmer Farley ’19 exclaimed: “It was crazy”. Equally ecstatic was Jake Rashkind, “As an old guy I’m always excited to see old athletes beat the young ones.” After walking past the scores of people who congratulated him, Woods made his way to Butler Cabin, where Jim Nantz was ready to interview him, and where former champion Patrick Reed was ready to give him the coveted green jacket. When the time finally came for Tiger to put on the jacket, he put it on slowly, and remarked jokingly “it fits.” 

     The comeback of Tiger Woods is surely wildly impressive. No athlete has gone through as much pain and suffering, until they finally got back to glory. Even though there are still some naysayers, one thing is for sure, Tiger is BACK!