Tiger Woods, one of the most dominant athletes of the last 20 years, has a career that hit major snags over the years. Many of golfer's analysts and fans had left him for dead. Everyone remembers the infamous 2009 Thanksgiving car crash that revealed him to be unfaithful to his marriage. That ultimately lead to a national fallout where Woods lost many of his sponsorships and hit an all-time low in his career, on and off the golf course.
Woods' last PGA tour title came in 2013, nearly 5 years ago. Strictly speaking from an age standpoint, Tiger was facing an uphill battle as an aging golfer. And it didn't get any easier. In 2014, Woods had to withdraw from several tournaments due to back spasms, and in 2015, he had a procedure on his back in an attempt to reduce pain. Last April, he really went all in to try to fix his bad back with an Anterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion, what's more commonly referred to as a fullback fusion. He would be out for 6 months, needing serious recovery time.
This brings us to 2018. Woods competed first at the Honda Classic in February, where he posted his highest finish in quite some time-12th place. Last week, at the Valspar Open Championship, he posted an incredible 2nd place finish, his first top 5 finish in over 4 years. He was one stroke off forcing what would've been an astonishing playoff with winner Paul Casey for the championship. This week, Tiger played at Bay Hill for the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Yet again, he pulled off a top 5 finish. The last time Tiger pulled off two consecutive top 5 finishes on the PGA Tour? 2012.
But the return of the most famous golfer of all time isn't just about his actual finishes. It is the energy and excitement he brings with him. Attendance shot up this year with his return with a crowd of 150,000 at the event, up from 112,000 last year. Going past the huge sellout crowds, television ratings have increased massively. This year's Valspar Open Championship pulled a Sunday rating of 5.11, up 190% from last year's event.
From Woods' success on the course to the massive hype and excitement that he brings with him, Tiger mania is very clearly back in America. A national scandal in 2009, plagued with a series injuries starting in 2014, barely playing golf the last two years, being at the not-so-young-age of 42... are all reasons to bet against him at every turn. After all of that, Tiger is the odds-on favorite to win golf's biggest tournament, the Masters, in April at 8-1.
America has fallen in love with Tiger again in full force, and he's delivered to this point. If and when (more when than if) he wins his first championship in nearly 5 years, the arc of his resurgence will be complete. But the old Tiger is already back in full force, no matter how unlikely that was to happen.
