Can we expect Tiger to come back this week better than ever?

When Tiger Woods blew through town for the BMW near the end of the 2007 season, he was playing perhaps the best golf of his life. He was in a torrid stretch where he wasn't just winning, but winning by a couple of touchdowns.

After his 22-under was victorious at Cog Hill, I suggested to Woods that he might be reaching a peak.

He didn't deny it and, essentially, allowed for the possibility that it might be his best golf.

I then asked him if he could play better, to which he answered that if he couldn't improve why bother playing at all?

Knowing that would be his reply, I of course wanted to know how, and whether he'd be willing to tell us.

That's when a big grin crossed his face, and he offered a polite but resounding, "No.''

I'm wondering now if the answer he didn't want to share had something to do with bones rattling in his left leg during every shot.

When you hear him talk about his agony at Torrey Pines - where he won the U.S. Open last June with a ruptured ACL and fractured leg - and laugh about how he can't remember when he last struck the rock without pain, you have to wonder how many more majors he'd have in his pocket if he hadn't been playing from the wrong fairway so much on Sundays.

That might be different post-surgery, as Florida neighbor and longtime friend John Cook - an 11-time PGA Tour winner - said Woods in the past few weeks has tightened up his driver and is more in control off the tee.

"(His) quality of golf is going to be as good or better than ever,'' Cook said, "because he's actually got a left leg to hit against.''

Well, yeah, you can see how that might help.

"My bones aren't moving anymore," Woods said in a teleconference Friday. "That's a very comforting feeling, hitting a golf ball and not having your bones slide all over the place.''

Makes sense.

So now you have the best who ever lived insisting he's pain-free, no small measure of joy for someone who'd forgotten how to manufacture a shot that didn't include knives through the knee.

There are plenty of folks who don't believe golf is a sport and don't think golfers like Tiger Woods are great athletes, and we won't waste the time here on an archaic argument.

But next time you visit your local orthopod, ask him what happens to the left knee of a right-handed golfer who swings as hard as Woods - or the left knee of any righty golfer - each time he or she follows through.

It's unnatural, it's destructive, and it's repeated with every single swing of every range session, practice round and tournament.

And now imagine Woods able to engineer the shots he wants to hit, not having to shape them based on what might do the least damage.

It has been difficult to fathom Tiger Woods better than he was, but now it's reasonable to think that sometime in the next year or two we may see Woods play better golf than during some of the remarkable stretches of the past.

The good news is his doubters believe that's impossible.

They also think it's absurd that he could come back this week and play well in Tucson after not having played a competitive round in eight months.

They think it's insane to suggest that a man who hasn't struck a ball in anger since June could play just a few tournaments and then turn around in a few weeks and win the Masters.

For any other human, all those things would be impossible, absurd and insane. Maybe even for Tiger Woods.

But just the fact that someone tells him he can't do it is all the reason in the world to believe he can.

Tiger Woods winning majors in 2009? Tiger Woods better than he's ever been?

Don't bet against him.

brozner@dailyherald.com