Tiger Woods recently participated in his first tournament in 466 days by taking part in The Hero World Challenge from Nov. 30th – Dec. 3rd 2017. He took a break of over a year, due to complications with his back. He had to undergo several surgeries to his back and a lot of critics began saying that he would never step foot on a golf course for a professional tournament again.
During the period he was out, Woods plead guilty to reckless driving and entered a diversion program. He was also sentenced to a year of probation and was ordered to pay a $250 fine and court costs. This controversy was another factor to a lot of criticism he received during this period.
After this difficult time for him, he was finally able to get back on the course and compete. No one expected him to be competitive this soon but he has surpassed expectations. Ever since coming back, he has constantly been able to play a prominent role in every tournament and last week he was able to finish in second place of The Valspar Championship, finishing in second place allowed him to become the favorite coming into this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational. He was near the top of the leaderboard all week and finished 10 under-par for the week.
After making a run in the front stretch of the back nine on Sunday, he finished his last three holes 2 over par, which really ended any chances he had at winning. Rory Mcilroy finished in first place this week with a score of 18 under-par.
He is currently a third place favorite for The Masters that takes place on April 5th- April 8th.
The question that people are now left to ask themselves is no longer if he’ll win, but when will he win. The atmosphere at these venues these past two tournaments has gone up another level since Tiger has been at the top. Golf is now entering a very important and exciting stage these next few months. The sport has been missing something the past couple of years, and I think I know what was missing. I saw a picture of a shirt the other day that read “Make Sunday’s Great Again,” and it had a silhouette of Tiger Woods celebrating. Tiger is back folks, and he is here to bring back that unparalleled excitement that no other golfer has brought to the sport in history.