Somewhere Phil Mickelson just shanked one into the woods.
Retif Goosen blew a 1-footer for birdie.
Ernie Els topped one.
And Vijay Singh just slammed back a huge shot of Patron sans training wheels.
Why?
Tiger Woods is back. Just in time for this weekend U.S. Open Championship at Torrey Pines in San Diego, CA.
For the last 7 or so weeks since Woods underwent his second arthroscopic surgery on his knee, players got to play the Players Championship, the Memorial, Byron Nelson and others without having to compete against Woods.
Fun's over, boys.
Tiger returns to the course where he's had, well, ridiculous success. He's won 6 times at Torrey Pines--including a complete obliteration of the field by 8 strokes earlier this year at the Buick. He's also only finished no worse than 5th place at Torrey once--a 2004, 10th-place showing.
Will his past success at Torry Pines yield the capturing of his 14th majors title?
Being a betting man my guess is, no.
Knee surgery, even so simple as a procedure as Woods underwent, still takes a good deal of recovery time, even mentally. Then there's shaking off the cobwebs. Not just by practicing, as I'm sure he's been doing plenty of that. I mean the cobwebs of competitive golf--the atmosphere, the pressure, the press, the attention, the difficulty of the course. Coming back to play a U.S. Open-ready course--especially the brutally long 7,600-yard, par 71 monster with narrowed down fairways and slicker-than-ice greens that will be Torrey this weekend--is like telling a guy who just recovered from back surgery, "Hey, buddy, good luck climbing Mt. Everest with that 70-lb. pack, m'kay?"
Then again, this is Tiger Woods. He's capable of doing anything on any course in the world.
Is he ready? I hope so.
It really would make a fun first Father's Day for me (and other dads) if he could pull off #14.
Welcome back , Tiger. The golf world's missed you.
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