Tiger Woods has always been a towering presence at the Masters.
But after missing the first major of the season in 2016 and 2017, his return to the Masters in 2018 was on a whole different scale.
Tiger-mania? Tiger-palooza? The perfect Tiger storm? Whatever the sobriquet, Woods was the 72-point headline every day once he arrived on Monday.
On the state-of-the-art range and throughout his three 9-hole practice rounds, Woods was greeted with thunderous applause from the massive gatherings of patrons ahead of one of the most anticipated Masters in history.
Just a year prior, his world silenced by back pain, Woods had told some members of the green jacket fraternity at the Champions Dinner that he thought his career was over. But 11 days after the 2017 Masters came to an end with Sergio Garcia wearing a green jacket, Woods, with his golf career and way of life in jeopardy, returned to the operating room for spinal fusion surgery.
2018 Masters: Final leaderboard
Months of painful rehab followed and slowly, Woods proved the surgery a success. With his back pain gone and his body healthy again, he returned to golf at the end of the year at the Hero World Challenge he hosts and tied for ninth.
His talents with golf club in hand steadily returned. He tied for 23rd in his first start of 2018 at the Farmers Insurance Open, then missed the cut in the Genesis Open. A 12th-place finish at the Honda Classic gave him a jolt of confidence. Then he nearly won the Valspar Championship but tied for second, and then tied for fifth the following week in the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
Coming off his two best finishes since 2015, he was once again among the favorites to win the Masters.
“To be able to play this golf course and to be able to tee it up and play in the Masters, this is one of the greatest walks in all of golf. And I had missed it for the last couple of years,” Woods said.
But for Woods, there were few fist pumps, little magic and muted roars once the Masters began. He opened with a 73 to fall seven shots back, a 75 left him 13 behind at the halfway mark. A weekend of 72-69 left him 1 over for the tournament and in a tie for 32nd.
“I felt I hit it well enough off the tee to do some things, but I hit my irons awful for the week,” Woods said Sunday. “It’s disappointing that I didn’t hit the ball well enough. But to be able to just be out here competing again, if you had said that last year at this particular time I would have said you’re crazy. I had a hard time just sitting or walking. So now to be able to play and compete and hit the ball the way I did, that’s quite a big change from last year.”
Long after Woods finished his week, Patrick Reed held off Rickie Fowler, four-time major champion Rory McIlroy and 2015 Masters champion and Ryder Cup partner Jordan Spieth to win his first major.
With a huge birdie from eight feet on the 14th and gut-check pars on 13, 15, 17 and 18 – the last a four-foot par save to conclude matters – Reed finished with rounds of 69-66-67-71 to end at 15-under 273.
Fowler shot 65-67 on the weekend and birdied four of his last seven holes to finish one back. Spieth briefly tied for the lead but a final-hole bogey left him with a 64 and two shots back. McIlroy, paired with Reed, continued his star-crossed Masters history with a 74 to finish six back.
This is the 21st story in a series looking at each of Tiger Woods’ appearances at the Masters. Catch up on the series here.
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