Butch Harmon looks ahead to Tiger Woods’ latest competitive comeback and assesses what we can expect to see from the 14-time major champion…
I don’t think Woods would even play this week if he didn’t think he had at least a chance of winning. He has told us all along in every interview he has done that every time he enters a tournament, he has the desire to win.
He wouldn’t have put himself out in the public spotlight if he wasn’t ready to perform. That’s the big thing we can take away from this, as Tiger wouldn’t allow himself to be mediocre.
He has the speed back in his swing and has the freedom in his body to do the things that he’s trying to do. It’s not that he wasn’t trying to make good swings before, his body wouldn’t let him.
Added with the pain, it was impossible for him to play, but now he appears to be pain-free and it should be fun to see him in action.
Tiger has to personally feel that he’s ready to go and this is a good test with a small field. He’ll get to play four rounds and I think he feels he’s ready. I hope he is as we all know that when Tiger plays he moves the needle, there’s no doubt about that.
There’s going to be a tremendous amount of pressure put him by the press, by the fans and by himself, because he’s as big of a competitor as I’ve ever seen.
He loves to compete, he loves the moment and I’m just excited to see which Tiger is going to show up and I sure hope it’s the one we remember from the past.
Having said that we’ve got to temp our expectations a little bit, as he is nearly 42 and his body isn’t going to be the same from the early 2000s when he just dominated golf.
Whether he can ever maintain that level again I’m not sure with such a young breed of players, but it’s sure going to be fun to see what happens.
