Golf is better when Tiger is in the mix.

Even if you are in the I hope he double bogeys down the stretch club.

"He's back!" needs a lot of clarification.

He is back--as a very good player. Perhaps even an elite player, depending upon your definition of "elite." Few truly believed this was even possible.

He is not back--as a dominant player. Jury is still out as to whether this will ever be the case.

He is not back--as the totally dominating player that he once was. Pretty safe to assume that he never will be that again.

Pretty sure 99.999 percent of people would agree with that

Yes, obviously.

I pretty much agree with this except for the "perhaps even as an elite player" part. He has 1 top 10 in a major and a couple other good finishes in weaker field events. He is clearly a very good golfer at this point but not close to elite. Francesco Molinari doesn't qualify as elite in my book and he has 3 wins and a major title this year. Tiger's year looks a lot like players near his actual ranking, 50th or so in the world. He is very good but extremely flawed.

And yes he will never be "back" in the way that the true nut slurpers around here and elsewhere pine for. He is a shell of himself mentally. He is good enough to get to the lead or close these days but there is reason literally every time he has gotten the lead or close in a major since YE Yang gaped him in 2009 and the fire hydrant followed he folds. He isn't what he once was mentally. He never will be. And other than the first few years of his career where he faced off against out of shape losers and could blast it way by them off the tee he has mostly been historically successfully by being mentally tougher than his opponents. No one in their right mind could watch today or any of the few majors he had a shot in from 2011-2013 and think present day Tiger Woods is mentally tough. Quite the opposite. The first sign of adversity and you can see on his face he is thinking "here we go again" and he ****s the bed as hard as possible. Continuing to hit irons off the tee after he blew his lead today was comical. He doesn't have it between the ears anymore and anyone wth a clue can see it.

He literally played with the guy who won and showed zero sign of fight or vintage Tiger moments on the back nine today. There is a decent chance we just watched the closest chance he will ever have to win a major again and he pissed it down his leg and went out with a whimper. It's sad honestly.

U mad

He's not mad he's scared. He knows the wins are inevitable. It's quite sad really.

Everyone focuses on Tiger when spieth and Rickie both disappointed in big spots. Rory too. Turns out golf is tough. Winning is difficult.

Tiger is now qualified for Bridgestone. He’s gonna win.

Back status: not

Okay, but here's a couple things.
1) First year back, in what we all thought was over forever.
2) 1 top 10 in a major this year is the same number as DJ
3) 1 top 10 in a major this year is more than elite Jason Day or JT
4) He's had a handful of good finishes in normal difficulty pga tour stops this year the Honda, API, Valspar, the Players.
5) He's way better than 50th in the world.
6) It's possible a mental breakthrough is coming.

The millions of people watching golf yesterday that never would if not for Tiger being in contention = back ldo

tiger is 11th in scoring average. his year does not look like the players around 50

1st on Saturdays

https://www.pgatour.com/stats/stat.117.html


lol there's that burgoon guy again too

Someone who has been in a coma for 10 years and just woke up would be certain that Bronson Burgoon is a top 5 player in the world.

I guess from all those hookers he learned how to get guys excited.

It still will never reach the feat of Norman in 2008.

Or Tom Watson

Tom Watson? I think the stat was that Norman hadn't made a cut for 3 years prior to his Open performance.

Tiger looks pretty happy to have made it to Firestone.

Guys he's done okay? He's tied with a guy from India ffs

He's back. 15 strokes back.

On a course where he's won 4000 times

If tiger makes the cut at the PGA next week I'll be surprised.

but if he does, it'll be proof that he's big time back

How many straight weekend fades does that make now? thisisfine.jpg