A smiling Tiger Woods weaved in between the cameras and moved into a familiar position, behind a microphone in a makeshift interview area near the 18th green at Bay Hill.
Woods often betrays apprehension by smiling broadly when facing the media.
I remember well how out of place that big, wide grin was when he walked past me in the media room at the 2010 Masters for that fateful first post-scandal news conference.
But if he was worried Wednesday about awkward questions delving into embarrassing revelations in Hank Haney’s book, "The Big Miss," he needn’t have been.
There were none.
I thought about going there but, in truth, didn’t have the stomach.
Not because I’m afraid to ask tough questions but because, even if Woods had addressed them in any meaningful way — and I doubt he would’ve — it occurred to me that I’m not sure I want to hear the answers.
The more I’ve read about Woods allegedly being rude, cheap, cold to his ex-wife, immature, selfish, porn-addicted and not a sharer of (sugar-free) Popsicles, the more I’ve felt like Maximus, in the film "Gladiator," after he’d slaughtered an opponent and looked in disgust at the cheering crowds, baying for blood.
"Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here?"
For years we’ve wanted to tear down the personal Berlin Walls that Woods built around himself — to see what humanity lay behind the immortal in the red shirt who won majors like a Terminator on Sundays, then sold cars and golf clubs and sports drinks and razor blades and whatever else came his way.
And now we know.
It’s not pretty.
He’s flawed.
Deeply.
But didn’t we know that already?
Was it not obvious after the 2009 scandal that cost him his wife, most of his sponsors, his Q-rating and, let’s not forget, his dominance on the course?
My colleague Mark Kriegel echoed the thoughts of many when he asked me about Haney's revelations: "Even if he's right, still a rat, yes?"
To many, yes.
But while I agree that without Tiger, Haney would never have been raking in big money from infomercials and reality shows, I also agree that the six years they had together were his years, too.
Of course there’s a question of betraying confidence — a line many wouldn’t cross — amid the backdrop of bitterness in what Haney’s doing; he was, after all, fired despite the fact he had resigned before Woods got around to doing the deed.
But he and his co-author, Jaime Diaz, an excellent writer and astute observer of all things Tiger for many years, have painted their Mona Lisa and decided not to Photoshop.
It’s there, warts and all.
Read it for what it is, or don’t read it at all for what it represents.
The choice is yours and, depending on your point of view, neither choice is wrong.
In the meantime, the narrative moves along, as it must.
The bigger picture now, as it has been since that fire hydrant changed everything, is: Can Woods, at 36, come back? Can he win majors again?
He’s playing at Arnold Palmer’s place this week, his last warm-up tournament before next month’s Masters.
Woods is a six-time winner at Bay Hill, but that was another time.
A time when he was better than everyone else, and he knew he was — and they knew it, too.
The last time we saw Woods on the PGA Tour was from a camera in the sky as he drove away from Doral, forced to withdraw from the final round of the Cadillac Championship because of a swollen Achilles tendon.
The condition is chronic, so it can come back at any time; even at the most inconvenient of times.
"As we age . . . " Woods said when I asked about the problem.
He’s felt that same tightness many times, but he said, "Not to that extent."
Now, even after four straight days of playing golf, it feels fine.
"One of the reasons why I wasn’t really that concerned about (the Achilles at Doral), that I would come back and play these events, because when it gets that tight, treatment for two or three days, it’s all fine," he said.
"All the swelling goes away, and I’m good to go."
Woods, who’s a compulsive fitness fanatic, has had to change his routines as well as the amount of time he spends on the range to accommodate the Achilles.
"That’s one of the downsides. The more active I am, the more swelling. So I’m going to have to just kind of monitor it," he said.
It’s a balancing act, he said. Playing through the pain last year — at the Masters — caused him to miss four months.
"It’s really hard, because I want to compete, I want to be out there," he said.
"But sometimes by competing and doing what I did, I cost myself a bunch of tournaments I could have played."
Woods mentioned he traveled to Augusta and played a round Sunday.
"It felt great," he said, making it clear where his thoughts lay.
And with that, he was dismissed from the podium.
The smile remained.
For this day, at least.
