Those who play it each April say Augusta National Golf Club is by far the biggest temptress in golf. It must be true. Tiger Woods has decided to play it next week in the Masters.
He didn't say too much about it, but in telling the world on Good Friday that he plans to play, Woods wrote that the tournament is important to him, and that he wants to play. Understood. Check and check; fine and dandy on both accounts.
As one of the Masters' greatest champions, a four-time adorner of the champion's green blazer, Woods has every right to play Augusta each April. Shoot, he can show up when he's 90 years old and needs a walker and assistance from the great-grandkids to get to the first tee. He's earned that.
Bit it doesn't mean he HAS to play. Especially next week. Upon hearing that Woods will tee it up among the dogwoods and azaleas next week, one thought trumps all the others percolating through the brain: Why?
Woods has all of 47 competitive holes under his belt in 2015, this on top of a season in which he played just seven times. The last we saw him at Phoenix and Torrey Pines, he had the chili-dip, house-of-horrors short game of a 16-handicapper. Hearing Tiger Woods discuss where his club should be at the bottom of his chipping motion? Why, you never heard stuff like that come out of his mouth. That's like Liberace telling you he can't find the right keys, or MJ shooting 38 percent from the charity stripe.
Since unveiling his newfound short-game demons at his own tournament at Isleworth in December, the Hero World Challenge (where the scary-bad chips nearly touched double-digits), Woods has been under the oppressive weight of intense scrutiny every time he misses a green. He pulls out a wedge, and suddenly fans cannot look the other way. It's like watching two little kids play catch with a water balloon, or waiting for a crash when the traffic lights go out at a busy intersection.
Sure, it's exciting to have Woods in the fold at Augusta. Forget that he sits 104th in the World Ranking, right between Thorbjorn Oleson and Jason Kokrak. There is nothing that replaces Tiger buzz at a major championship. It was strange not having him on the grounds in Augusta last spring, or not to see him at the U.S. Open at Pinehurst. I feel blessed to have covered every Masters since 1995 — last April marked 20 consecutive years — and until last spring, Woods had been there for every one. He'd showed up as an amateur, showed up and won his first Masters as a pro in 1997 by a dozen shots, turned up after injury and played well, and showed up after great personal scandal and his long tumble from grace . . . and still tied for fourth in 2010.
Tiger and Augusta? As Forrest Gump might say, those two went together like peas and carrots. He knows the nuances, knows the spots where he can miss shots, and could easily negotiate the place with his eyes closed in the darkness of midnight. Sure, there's been a victory drought — Woods' fourth green jacket arrived in 2005, and he hasn't won any major since June 2008 — but he's still had his chances at Augusta. From 2006 to '13, he played the National eight times, was a runner-up in 2007-08 and finished worse than tied for sixth only once.
Only he truly knows, but it wouldn't appear that his game is in top shape. That it would be Augusta-primed. The last three times Woods has put his game on public display, it's been terrifying to watch. He proclaimed himself healthy in December following his microdiscectomy earlier in the year, and the full swing looked more free and less mechanical. Nonetheless, caught between coaches Sean Foley and Chris Como — and sandwiched between "release patterns" in his long and short game — his pitching went the way of Jimmy Hoffa. It's been missing. Folding sod over seemingly easy pitch shots? Painful. Never had we seen Woods the golfer so powerless, so vulnerable.
Woods has told us for years that he only shows up to tournaments in which he can contend and win, and he promised when he walked away in February that we wouldn't see him again until all this mess was fixed, and he was ready to win again. Surely he's fooling himself if he's going to tell us that he's ready to win at Augusta.
So why does Woods feel he needs to play? Why put himself under the brightest spotlight there is, on the most exacting golf test the pros face all year, where short-game performance is absolutely critical? Shoot, one media comrade made the observation this week that if you stuck Woods' Nike ball long and left today on Augusta's 16th — the spot from which he holed his famous U-turn pitch en route to beating Chris DiMarco in 2005 — that scores of 5, 6 and 7 suddenly could be in play.
Can you imagine Tiger needing to play a touch shot from over the green at Augusta's 12? Or trying the deft pitch from just over the putting surface at 15? Those shots require the precision of a surgeon's touch. Is he really going to look us all in the eye and, say come Thursday, he's ready for that? And furthermore, what mental damage might be done if he isn't?
Is it simply ego? Is that why he'll play? Golf is throwing its biggest party of the year, and he wants to be part of it? Does he simply relish churning in the eye of the storm, which was the scenario last summer when, on a sleepy Wednesday afternoon at Valhalla, he walked out of the trees, seemingly like some old ballplayer on "Field of Dreams", and decided to tee it up at the PGA Championship.
So crank up the Augusta volume about, oh, 12 notches on the dial. Forget about Rory's career slam quest, and Jordan Spieth's return, and Bubba's defense, and Crenshaw's final bow. The 2015 Masters is about to become all Tiger, all the time.
He's good for our game, and elevates the excitement, and we wish him well, we really do. Can you imagine Woods in the mix again for a green jacket next weekend? Wow. The thought alone produces goosebumps.
Surely the best judge of whether he is ready is the guy who has won those 14 majors sporting the red Nike shirt on Sundays. But is he? I mean, forget the friendly little matches at home at Medalist, and what he's been shooting on those worse-ball rounds, or how he looked when he jetted in/out of Augusta earlier this week. That's all been done somewhere down the brick road in Oz, pulling on the strings and gears behind the comfort of the curtain.
Come Thursday in Augusta, he'll be all alone and standing out in the bright lights. And as beautiful as that place can be, it can render a golfer pretty lonely, too.
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