When it comes to Tiger Woods’ return to the PGA Tour, let’s just slow down, folks

Sports fans tend to be an incredibly impatient group.

If your team won a title two years ago, why didn’t they win one last year? If your team settled for a field goal, the fans insist they should have gone for the touchdown. Rookies have to start in week one of their professional careers or they are busts. Why build for the future when you can win now, now, now?

So it has been with the latest in a series of comebacks for Tiger Woods, the king of the comeback in golf. After a horrific automobile crash that could have taken his life last February, Woods has once again fought his way back from physical adversity to tee off in a PGA Tour event. OK, it’s an unofficial event, a Silly Season tournament where who wins and who loses doesn’t mean much at all. But the PNC Championship this weekend is a chance to see Woods hitting golf balls, and that alone is thrilling considering it was possible that might never happen again.

But that won’t stop people from wanting Woods to win a major championship this year. They will want him to play a relatively full schedule. Get that one win to pass Sam Snead on the all-time wins list, some fans will cry. Get closer to Jack Nicklaus on the all-time major titles ladder, some will demand.

Let’s slow down, folks.

PNC: Tiger Woods, Charlie gallery | PNC photo gallery | How to watch

Yes, Tiger Woods is playing golf this week with his son and other professionals and their family members. He’s even playing well. But don’t mistake this for Woods playing PGA Tour-caliber golf. Woods is tantalizing fans with his game, but look closer and you know this is not a guy getting ready to play in the Farmers Insurance Open in February.

Can he even walk 18 holes? Remember, this is not a disability that Woods has, like Casey Martin had when he used a cart on the Tour. This is classified as an injury. So Woods can use a cart in the unofficial event this week but will walk when he comes back to the Tour. Not just 18 holes, mind you, but 72 holes on golf courses with hills and swales and bumps that will create strange sidehill and downhill lies. When will Woods be able to handle all of that?

Too many questions to answer

And how have the injuries to his leg impacted his golf swing? Is the leg strong enough to take the stress and torque that Woods has always created in his swing? Maybe that will come down the road, but it certainly isn’t there now in terms of playing four days in a PGA Tour event.

In other words, there are still too many unknowns to make Woods the betting favorite at the Masters. Maybe Las Vegas should be taking bets on whether Woods even plays in the Masters. You might want to bet against that.

No one on the PGA Tour today knows more about what it takes to come back from physical ailments than Woods. From the knee surgeries to the back surgeries that seemed to end his career at one point, Woods has followed a strict path of rehabilitation and hard work to not only play again but win again. Maybe there is another comeback in Woods. Maybe there isn’t.

Woods will be back in some way, shape or form. That will be terrific for golf, since he is the best golfer of a couple of generations now and many will steadfastly argue that he is the greatest golfer of all time. It is wonderful to see him on a golf course again, smiling, laughing and admiring the swing of his 12-year-old son Charlie in the PNC Championship.

But patience is a virtue for Woods now as he battles back from the accident. Hopefully, golf fans will find the patience to let Woods return to competition in his own time.

Larry Bohannan is The Desert Sun golf writer, he can be reached at larry.bohannan@desertsun.com or (760) 778-4633. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at @larry_Bohannan.

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Battered but never broken: A list of Tiger Woods' injuries through the years