Tiger Woods is back, yet again.
The former worldwide No. 1 golfer will return to the professional game next week as he has committed to play in the season-opening Safeway Open in Napa, California.
Whatever his performance, we should be thankful. Tiger is back, and that should be enough.
Woods will always have expectations, of course. When you are as dominant as he was for so long, when you become synonymous with greatness, it's hard for people to process you in any other way. Woods was the greatest alive, perhaps ever. He was almost mythic in his greatness. Every leaderboard he charged up on Sunday was a message sent to the other golfers on the course: I am coming, and I am unstoppable. They could do little more than get out of his way.
Every time Woods has tried to fight back from injury, rushing himself, trying to revamp his swing, he's returned with the expectations that he would get back to the top. That he'd return to his rightful place atop the golfing world. When he fell short, people were devastated - this wasn't the man who made them fall in love with the game.
But Woods isn't that person anymore. He's ranked 767th in the world. He's 40 years old. Even if everything goes right, he's never getting back to the heights he once reached.
This should be liberating. Not only for Woods but for us as fans. We got a peak of this new Woods at this year's Ryder Cup. No longer was he the Alpha Dog, the team leader, the sun which the rest of the team orbited around. No, he was a vice-captain, not even playing, there to support the guys and be a sounding board. A leader. A teammate.
If it was at first a little bit of an awkward fit, Woods grew into it as the week went along. He wore the non-spotlight well, and when the Americans stepped up and won, he celebrated happily not because he'd done it but because he'd gotten to witness others do it.
He looked happy, and for the first time, I was more than happy just to have that. I found myself not caring if Woods ever won another major or not, or ever reclaimed the world No. 1 spot. I just liked having him around, around the sport of golf, yukking it up with the other players, talking trash to the young guys, the ones who grew up obsessed with him and who clearly still revere him.
I want that Tiger back on tour, and I don't care if he never wins another tournament. He's given us enough greatness. We can enjoy him as a golfer now, one of the very best, but also one of the pack. That should be more than enough.
