I promised myself I wouldn't write a Tiger Woods article until later in the year, but honestly, with all the hype, I could not help myself. Yes, the big cat is back. Love him or hate him, if you are a golf fan, you are most likely paying attention to what Tiger Woods is doing when he is playing in a tournament, and I will gladly say this is a safe assumption to make. So before he makes his stop into Bay Hill, right here in my backyard of Orlando, FL, I would like to review his overall progress in this latest "comeback.”

Since his return to the PGA Tour in December of 2017, he has played in five events, with one of them being unofficial (Sorry Hero World Challenge). A spoiler alert to any non-golf fan reading up to this point, I am about to get incredibly technical with some statistics. In those five events, he has notched a T9 at the Hero World Challenge, a T23rd finish at the Farmer's Insurance, a missed cut at the Genesis Open, a solo 12th place at the Honda Classic, and most recently, he tied second at the Valspar Championship. His scoring average in this comeback is a 70.036, which would ideally put him in the Top 25 in overall scoring. His driving distance average of 306.3 yards would most likely put him in the Top 30 of driving distance. The crazy thing to note is Tiger Woods recorded the fastest swing speed on record over the last ten years on the PGA Tour with a staggering 129.2 mph. Considering all the injuries he has overcome, plus with all the surgeries, and the most recent spinal fusion surgery, to be able to swing that fast is unbelievable for someone that has had that many injuries.

Alright, enough of the technical talk, so with all the numbers, what does this all mean? Tiger Woods is indeed "back” and a lot faster than we all thought, even Tiger himself didn't think it be this quick. His short game has saved him multiple times because that's literally all he could do when he got the fusion surgery, and now the long game is starting take shape. Yes, he's still not the most accurate with driver, but for the last twenty or so years that hasn't been the case. The Valspar Championship showed that even when his game is not really that great, he can get into contention. A little flashes of brilliance of the Tiger of old shows he still has what it takes to compete on the PGA Tour.

He comes to Bay Hill this week with all of positives, and it just so happens to be at a venue he has won more times than I could count. We'll see how he does because let's be honest, golf is just more exciting with him playing than him not playing.