This article is part of our Weekly PGA Recap series.
On a late-autumn weekend when the 49ers were playing the Eagles in the NFL Game of the Year and the highly controversial college football playoff foursome was reaching a denouement, there was really only one way for golf to grab the attention of sports fans. And that was: The Return of Tiger Woods.
Woods returned to competitive golf for the first time in eight months and, despite finishing a full 20 shots behind Hero World Challenge winner Scottie Scheffler, the week was deemed a success in all facets and by all concerned parties. And no one was more concerned than Woods, who the last time we saw him had withdrawn from the Masters in April and then underwent ankle surgery. Probably the most important takeaway was that Woods was able to complete four trips around the Albany Golf Club course in the Bahamas – and with no setbacks.
"Every day I got faster into the round," Woods told reporters after he completed his final round. "The first day took me a while to get a handle on it, second day was faster, today was right away. And that's eventually, when I play on a regular basis, that's normally how it is. It takes me usually during warmup before I get a feel for the round. To be honest, that first day took me a while."
Woods shot 75-70-71-72 for an even-par score to finish 18th among the 20 golfers in the invitation-only tournament that benefits Woods' foundation. Perhaps most encouraging development, other than walking 72 holes, was how strong he looked with his driver. Woods ranked fourth in the field in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee and eighth in driving distance. On the other hand, he ranked 20th in SG: Approach, 16th in SG: Around-the-Green and 18th in SG: Putting. Albany is known for being a tough place to chip, and it's understandable that Woods' short game putting would be rusty after such a long layoff.
"I think the best part of the week is the way I drove it," Woods said. "I drove it on pretty much a string all week. Granted, these fairways are big. I felt like I had my ball speed up, which was nice, and I was hitting the middle of the face the entire week, which is nice. So it's not like I have to go and try and find something the next few weeks or something going into next year; what I've been working on is right there and maybe just tighten up a little bit."
Really, the leaderboard position and stats are not important right now.
Before the tournament, Woods spoke of wanting to play once a month in 2024, which surely would mean his Genesis Invitational at Riviera in February, followed by THE PLAYERS Championship in March and then the four majors in April, May, June and July. Now that the Hero is over, that goal is still attainable, perhaps more so.
"Yeah. I think that I can get into the rhythm of it," Woods said. "I think that having a couple of weeks off to recover, a week to build up, there's no reason why I can't get into that rhythm. It's just a matter of getting in better shape basically. I feel like my game's not that far off, but I need to get in better shape."
Just for the record, Woods finished ahead of only two golfers. Will Zalatoris was making his return from a longer layoff than Woods after undergoing back surgery. The other guy was U.S. Open champion Wyndham Clark. It's true you never know how much everybody will try in this tournament, a cash- and world-rankings-points grab just a week after Thanksgiving. But Woods is old enough to be … well, a lot older than Clark, who turns 30 next week. Later this month, Woods turns, oh my, 48.
And so Woods' first Hero World Challenge in four years is in the books. Third-from-last place never looked so good.
There's no point in talking fantasy value or maybe breaking the record for all-time PGA Tour wins he shares with Sam Snead at 82.
Let's just look forward to next time, hopefully at Riviera, where Woods last year shot two rounds in the 60s, made the cut and tied for 45th.
But then the Super Bowl will be over and Woods will be an even bigger story than he was this past weekend.
MONDAY BACKSPIN
Scottie Scheffler
With Viktor Hovland bidding for the title of world's best golfer, if only in the court of public opinion and not in the OWGR for now, Scheffler won for the first time since THE PLAYERS in March. Of course, he had a boatload of top-5s since then but was always held back by woeful putting. At the Hero, Scheffler ranked sixth in SG: Putting. Hardly definitive proof that the flat-stick woes are over, but he had to start somewhere. In a tournament where not everyone comes to play, Scheffler sure does -- he also finished second to Hovland in his first two trips to Albany.
Sepp Straka
Straka was the unlikely runner-up, someone who could've been just-happy-to-be-here among golf's elite. But now up to 20th in the world rankings, the first Austrian to ever crack the top-20, Straka may be joining the elite. After all, he's now ahead of Justin Thomas, Tony Finau and Sam Burns, to name a few. At 30 years old, Straka could be heading for his biggest season ever in 2024.
Justin Thomas
Thomas completed an encouraging fall season with a third-place showing at the Hero. That was his third top-5 since the PGA Tour playoffs, in which he didn't compete. Thomas ranked second in the field in SG: Approach but 16th in SG: Putting, which is so on brand for him. We could see him next in about a month at the Sony Open, where he has won before and is as good a place as any for him to continue to restore his game.
Collin Morikawa
A look at the stat line showed a rank of 15th in SG: Approach, losing 2 ½ shots to the field, and third in SG: Putting, making you wonder if this was a Morikawa from an alternate universe. Whoever this was, he finished solo seventh.
Justin Rose
Rose led the field and SG: Approach and ranked second in SG: Putting yet somehow only tied for eighth with a stat line good enough to win many weeks anywhere in the world.
Viktor Hovland
The two-time defending Hero champion was pretty much out of it after starting the week with twin 1-over 73s. But the competitor in Hovland surfaced on Sunday, when he shot the round of the tournament, a 63, to zoom into a tie for 10th.
Lucas Glover
Glover got a much-deserved invite from Woods into this elite gathering, albeit very late in the process and not exactly the elite invite he was hoping for this fall. Glover finished solo 12th alongside a bunch of Ryder Cuppers, who got the invite that he really wanted. With Glover, we're keeping an eye on his putting, and whether that late-summer awakening on the greens for one of the Tour's worst putters is sustainable. Probably not. We already saw a dip in some fall tournaments. In the Hero, Glover ranked 11th in the field in SG: Putting.
Will Zalatoris
Like with Woods, the result was secondary, if that. Zalatoris was playing for the first time since the WBC-Match Play in late March, some two weeks before Woods made his last appearance until this week. Zalatoris had full-blown back surgery. He finished 20th and last in the field, and 20th in SG: Putting, losing five strokes to the field. So at least that part of his game hasn't missed a beat. We kid, we kid. Actually, Zalatoris switched to a long putter, so give him time to get acclimated to it.
OWGR Top 50
With most golfers done for 2023, Adrian Meronk now stands 48th in the world, with Adam Hadwin at 49th and Nicolai Hojgaard at 50th. It's certainly possible for them to drop between now and Jan. 1 even with no one playing. Hadwin already is in the Masters field but the other two are not. There are still two more DP World Tour events before year's end, both in Africa, including this week's Alfred Dunhill Championship in South Africa. Neither Meronk of Hojgaard is entered. Nick Taylor is currently ranked 51st but already has a Masters berth secured.
Australian Open
LIV Golf's Joaquin Niemann made a bid to re-enter the top-50 OWGR by winning the Australian Open. He didn't quite get there, but it did move him to No. 59 and, even better, the win got him into the Open Championship. The tournament was part of the Open Qualifying Series. Niemann, playoff runner-up Rikuya Hoshino and T4 Adam Scott received berths for Royal Troon next July. Niemann still will have non-LIV opportunities before April to climb back inside that key threshold. The Chilean overtook third-round leader Min Woo Lee, who was bidding for a second straight win in Australia but wound up solo third. Still, Lee moved to a career-best 35th in the world rankings (and he had already qualified for the Open).
South African Open Championship
Another LIV golfer, Dean Burmester, won for the second straight week on the Sunshine Tour in a co-sanctioned DP World Tour event to climb to 77th in the world rankings. He also won the Joburg Open last week. Burmester and a number of other big-name South Africans -- Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel, both with LIV, to name two -- are playing in the Alfred Dunhill Championship this week. It doesn't seem there are enough available points that even another win would be enough to vault Burmester into the top-50. He qualified for the Open with last week's win.
