Despite finishing last where he was often first, Tiger Woods will be a force in the future

Choosing the moments that will most define the career of Tiger Woods is like selecting the most beautiful snowflakes in a New England blizzard, but it’s difficult to find better than the five occasions when he sat atop the glamorous end of the leaderboard at the Masters.

• In 1997, when he won his first major championship by 12 strokes.

• In 2001, his sixth major victory and fourth in a row.

• In 2002, when he became only the third man to repeat.

• In 2005, when his chip-and-drip on the 16th hole produced the most celebrated call in the career of Verne Lundquist.

• And in 2019, the most improbable of them all, when he held off the world’s best golfers, Father Time and Mother Nature to grab his 15th and most recent major, almost 11 years after his 14th.

“Most recent.” One could type “last,” but Woods has achieved the implausible so often that those who have covered him are hesitant to suggest finality. But the time when optimistic caveats are dispensed with is obviously at hand, and would be so even if he wasn’t 48 years old and more familiar with the knife than a jar of peanut butter.

The 88th Masters was Woods’ 26th. He finished in 60th place, last among those who made the weekend. In terms of competitive relevance, physical power, intimidatory power and leaderboard position, he was as far from the player he once was as it seems possible to get. And yet the man who famously said “second sucks, and third is even worse” was able to find small successes on that bottom rung.

“It was a good week. It was a good week all around,” he said. “I think that coming in here, not having played a full tournament in a very long time, it was a good fight on Thursday and Friday. Unfortunately, yesterday it didn't quite turn out the way I wanted it to.”

Entering the week, Woods had completed 72 holes just three times in the past four years. He sits 959th in the Official World Golf Ranking, right between household names Soren Broholt Lind and Ruan Korb. In the past couple of years, he has spent considerably more working time in PGA Tour meetings than in PGA Tour events. Given that context, perhaps small wins like making the cut do count for something, especially when six guys who won on the PGA Tour this season failed to do so. But enough to think there’s still a chance? That in the right circumstances — body working, weather co-operating, swing syncing, competition wanting — he can again get himself into the mix when it matters?

Cockeyed optimists will point to Tom Watson being one putt from winning the Open on a new hip when just a few weeks shy of his 60th birthday. Except Watson at 60 had a lot fewer rough miles on the body clock than Woods at 48.

There’s no venue where Woods has more institutional knowledge than at Augusta National, so he could make cuts for years to come. “It's always nice coming back here because I know the golf course, I know how to play it. I can kind of simulate shots. Granted, it's never quite the same as getting out here and doing it,” he said.

The ‘doing it’ part is what caught up with him in closing rounds of 82-77.

Such was Woods’ luminescence, every player is dated against his résumé. Ludvig Åberg, for example, born two years after Tiger began his streak of made cuts at Augusta National, which stretched to a record-breaking 24 in ’24. Scottie Scheffler was a couple months old when Woods turned professional in ’96, and Collin Morikawa about the same vintage when he slipped into that first green jacket in ’97. But we’ve mercifully now reached a point where Woods himself is no longer measured against his beguiling best. The Tiger epoch has finally been divided into two periods: B.C. (before the crash) and Post Ruina (after the fall).

The Austrian tennis star Dominic Thiem — a former U.S. Open champion and world No. 3 — has been sidelined with a wrist injury for several seasons, and recent comments he made indicate a sanguine perspective one suspects Woods too has arrived at, even as he harbors notions that another major win lies within him.

“I’ve stopped comparing myself to the player I was before,” Thiem said. “It’s pointless. I’m trying to do my best with my current situation.”

Woods echoed that sentiment after completing play Sunday.

“Just keep lifting, keep the motor going, keep the body moving, keep getting stronger, keep progressing,” he said by way of his game plan.

Woods isn’t finished as a competitor — he intends to play the remaining three majors — and is only getting started as a political force, which may yet be his most impactful period. Before he headed back down Magnolia Lane, he was asked about the meeting he attended last month in the Bahamas, when the PGA Tour’s player-directors sat to discuss a deal with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the Saudi investment chief who has bankrolled the schism in men’s golf.

“I don't know if we're closer, but certainly we're headed in the right direction,” Woods offered. “That was a very positive meeting, and I think both sides came away from the meeting feeling positive.”

Like he said, the goal is to keep lifting, keep progressing.

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Tiger Woods' future in golf might not be in the winner's column, and that's OK