Rozner: Tiger Woods brings it home at Masters
They all said they wanted it.
All the youngsters on the PGA Tour — and even some of the players in their 30s that grew up watching Tiger Woods dominate golf — said they wanted to face Woods on Sunday in a major championship.
The “Tiger Wave,” this group of stars that play the game because Woods made it cool to play golf, they said they wanted to try him at his best.
Well, that's never going to happen because that Woods is gone forever, but the one that nearly won two majors last year and captured the Tour Championship is pretty decent, even if he's only 70 percent of what he once was.
Nevertheless, let it always be said of Tiger Woods, careful what you wish for.
Completing the greatest comeback in American sports history, Tiger Woods stared down the best players on the planet on the back nine and with the wind howling at Augusta, Woods watched them all go to pieces, and then came from behind to win his fifth Green Jacket and his 15th major championship Sunday at the Masters.
It must be uncomfortable today for all those who doubted Woods, who took such pleasure in saying he would never win again after four back surgeries, and four years of almost no competitive golf.
Well, he did that in Atlanta last September, only 51 weeks after being unable to swing anything more than a putter, when he said at the Presidents Cup in 2017 that he wasn't sure he would ever play golf again.
It's inconceivable following that kind of layoff that he accomplished what he did in 2018.
Truly absurd.
Still, the experts changed their narrative and said he would never win another major, never threaten Jack Nicklaus at 18, but now that conversation will change, too.
Woods has 15, with his first major since 2008 at Torrey Pines, and he's 43 years old. Still to come this year are majors at Bethpage and Pebble Beach, two tracks on which he's already won major championships.
Nicklaus won his final major, the Masters, at 46 in 1986, thought to be impossible then, but Julius Boros won the PGA Championship at age 48, and 36 players have won majors after reaching 40 years old, including Phil Mickelson, who won the Open Championship at 43.
Vijay Singh won 22 tournaments after age 40. Sam Snead won 17 in his 40s. Kenny Perry won 11 of his 14 after turning 40. Steve Stricker nine of his 12.
If Woods can stay healthy, which is the eternal qualifier, he could have another 10 years to chase down Nicklaus, and he's now within one victory of Snead, who owns the record for most PGA Tour wins (82). Woods (81) passed Nicklaus (73) earlier this decade.
That's what is on Woods' mind. Victories. That's what playing is about for him.
But for sports fans of all kinds, it's much more than that.
His 12-shot victory in winning his first Masters in 1997 was the biggest moment in golf at least since Nicklaus in 1986 and maybe the biggest since 20-year-old amateur Francis Ouimet won the U.S. Open in 1913 at Brookline.
Tiger Woods was as big as Michael Jordan. A golfer.
Turns out, like Jordan, Woods was the greatest of all time, dominating his sport like no one ever had, but after the scandal and all the surgeries — and notwithstanding the eight victories in 2012-13, when he was doing it with mirrors amid injuries and swing changes — he was told over and over again that he would never again win a major.
Once again, he has stuck it to the critics. Suddenly, even some of them believe 18 is back on the table.
What's amazing is they fail to understand what that scene meant in Atlanta last year, when the ropes collapsed and tens of thousands flooded the fairway and surrounded the 18th green, wanting to be as close as possible when Woods made his triumphant putt.
The greatest of all time had reminded them of what once was great — and might be again.
The fans understood they were seeing a glimpse into the future, that there were real possibilities for 2019.
With perhaps the greatest victory in golf history, Tiger Woods has taken another major step.
There will be more.