HE'S BACK, BUT...
Tiger's game still not out of the Woods
ORLANDO, Fla. — Tiger Woods walked onto the tee for a routine pro-am round Friday and felt an unexpected dose of nerves, realizing how long it had been since he had an audience on the golf course.
The small grandstand behind the tee was packed, everyone on their feet. Spectators filled every inch behind the ropes for 95 yards down the left side of the hole. This was another must-see moment involving Woods under far different circumstances.
Ten months after Woods shattered his right leg in a car crash in suburban Los Angeles, he was back to golf at the PNC Championship with 12-year-old son Charlie.
Back to being Tiger Woods? Far from it.
Even so, the Feb. 23 images of his crumpled SUV and seeing him Friday in golf attire taking full swings and holing putts was no less remarkable.
“I haven’t hit too many tee shots and then ... all of a sudden there’s people off the tee box,” Woods said. “It was an awesome day. It was just awesome to be back out there playing and being out there with my son. And we just had an absolute blast.”
They are the featured attraction at the 36-hole event that pairs parents and children, just like last year, with one big difference. A year ago, there was enormous appeal getting a look at the young son of the 15-time major champion.
Now it’s all about the father.
Nearly two dozen media, mostly cameras, waited along the circle drive and raised their equipment each time a car approached at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club Orlando. Woods fooled them again, walking in from the parking lot, just like normal.
He stopped hitting full shots over the last six holes, and he didn’t have much power on the tee shots he hit. That was to be expected. As he said two weeks ago in the Bahamas, competing in a real event at the highest level is a long way off.
“It’s just not as powerful,” Woods said. “I can’t generate the speed I used to and the body is not what it used to be. Obviously, it’s been a little banged up this year. And slowly but surely, I’ll get to where the speed will start coming back and I can start hitting the shots that I see that just aren’t quite coming off.”
There were some positive signs. After his opening drive, he stooped over with all his weight on his damaged right leg to remove the tee. At times he walked with a purposeful stride. And at times, his gait was slower and more measured.
Woods walked from the back tee to the forward tee his son is using, and then he got into a cart that he can use for a 20-team event that includes 86year-old Gary Player and the 11-year-old son of former British Open champion Henrik Stenson.
The Masters is four months away. Augusta National is the toughest walk Woods faces in even healthy years.
“I couldn’t walk this golf course even right now, and it’s flat,” Woods said. “I don’t have the endurance. My leg is not quite right yet, and it’s going to take time. I’m a long way from playing tournament golf. This is hit it, hop in a cart and move about my business.
“Being able to play tournament golf and being able to recover, practice and train and hit balls after a round and do all the things that I need to be at a high level, I’m a long way from that.”
He did go to the range when his pro-am round was over, first as a spectator. Charlie dropped a bag of balls and began hitting wedges. Woods slowly took a seat in the grass, leaning against the back of a cart, and raised his right knee.
Before long, he slowly got up and hit wedges side-by-side with Charlie, and then they moved over to a bunker for some practice. It was light and easy, which is about all Woods is able to handle at the moment.
Woods plays in the final group on Saturday along with Justin Thomas and his father, the defending champions.
Woods and his son finished seventh last year, and then Woods had a fifth surgery on his lower back that delayed the start of his season. Then, his season and nearly his career ended when his SUV that police estimated was going at least 84 mph crashed over a median on a winding road and tumbled down a hill.
And now he’s playing golf again in a family event with major champions, riding in a cart. But it’s golf. Asked if he was amazed to be back so soon, Woods replied, “Yes and no.”
It seemed unlikely when he was immobilized for three months in a makeshift hospital bed in his house when he his primary mission was to walk on his own.
The second period, well, these were the Rangers at their best, controlling the play, getting the puck in deep, snapping off crisp passes, winning just about every shift in dominating the pretty darn good team from Vegas.
It was 2-1 into the third for the Blueshirts off a pair of goals in the second, Mika Zibanejad with a five-on-five goal early and then Chris Kreider with a power-play goal off a brilliant feed from No. 93 midway through.
But not only were the Rangers unable to carry momentum into the third period, they came to a screeching halt. No longer attacking, no longer getting the puck deep, no longer creating opportunities, the Blueshirts went 15:58 without a shot after Zibanejad’s deflection at 1:40. More (or less) than that, the team had all of two attempts through the first 15:30 of the third.
The quest for a 60-minute effort thus continues following what became Friday’s disappointing 3-2 shootout loss to the Golden Knights at the Garden, who eventually tied the match with 5:16 remaining in regulation when Dylan Coghlan beat Alexandar Georgiev through a screen and then won it when Jonathan Marchessault recorded the skills competition’s only goal in the top of the third frame.
That is the next step in the evolution of this 19-7-4 club that is 2-3-1 in its past six. That has been the objective for a while.
“That’s the challenge for every team in this league,” said Kreider, whose goal was his 18th overall and 11th with the man advantage. “Every team knows how they want to play, it’s just a matter of getting the whole group to coalesce and do that over the course of 60 minutes.
“I think we’re doing a better and better job of that. Thinking back to the beginning of the season, we’re stretching out those flashes of good play into larger chunks. There are definitely lapses but they’re fewer and farther between compared to the way it was the first 10 or 12 games when Igor [Shesterkin] was carrying us.”
No one expected the Golden Knights to roll over. But it is still baffling that the Blueshirts did not at least attempt to continue to take the game to their opponents and ram it down their throat, especially with the added incentive of trying to get a victory for head coach Gerard Gallant in his first game against the team that fired him in January 2020.
“It’s nothing we talk about, to back off, but we know how dangerous they can be and obviously there is a tendency to back off a little too much,” said Zibanejad, who had an extra snap in his step and crackle to his shot. “I thought overall the last little bit of the first and the rest of the game we played really well.”
The Rangers did play well enough defensively in the third while attempting to protect the lead, but they never had the puck in Vegas’ end. If they chipped it in, it came out without much op
position. It’s not that the Golden Knights seized the match, they just kind of took it when the Blueshirts simply left it there.
“It was one of those periods where there wasn’t a lot going on,” Gallant said. “They’re a high-powered team so you try to play them more defensively.
“I want us to keep going, I want us to keep playing, a little safer, but it can be a mental thing sometimes with the guys. We’re pushing them on the bench, telling them to play hard and smart. The second period was as perfect a period we played all year, but that’s hockey. That’s the mental part of the game.
“I didn’t think we played bad by any means in the third, but we didn’t take it like we did in the second.”
If the third period was safetyfirst, safety-last and safety-always, the three-on-three overtime exploded into a cavalcade of glorious chances at both ends of the ice as both teams went for it on every shift. Georgiev stopped Max Pacioretty twice on breakaways, once at 1:35 and then with :30 to go. Ryan Strome was robbed at the doorstep by Laurent Brossoit, and then so was Filip Chytil driving to the net with 44 seconds on the clock. It was a thrilling five minutes.
“It was pretty exciting for the fans, a couple of great moments that way and the other way, back and forth” Georgiev said. “It would have been a lot more fun if we won.”