Aging Tiger Woods Looks for Redemption at Augusta

By: Marino Parascenzo


[Editor's Note: On the eve of the 79th Masters, Cybergolf contributor Marino Parascenzo received the 2015 Masters Major Achievement Award, an honor stemming from Marino's many decades of tournament coverage, mainly for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.]

Even a total eclipse of the sun couldn't blot out Tiger Woods a few weeks ago. A kid from Texas, however, certainly is doing a good job of it at the Masters.

This would be Jordan Spieth, 21, out of Dallas, in his third year on the PGA Tour, in his second Masters - he came within a couple of late glitches of winning his first last year - shot 64 in the first round and a 66 Friday for a tournament record 14-under 130. With one bogey in 36 holes. At Augusta National. But enough about Jordan Spieth.

It was the course that did it, to sum up Tiger Woods. Yes, Woods knew what Spieth was doing. For one thing, you could follow the roars around the emerald acres. But -

"I was watching, of course," Woods said. "I think you had to pay attention to it because … it's indicative of what the golf course is giving up. So the scoring conditions were there, because the greens were soft. I mean, we could be aggressive. The balls were spinning back - 5-irons were making ball marks, things that you just don't normally find here."

Could we possibly infer that Woods was saying that if the greens were harder and faster, he would have done better? Not that he mentioned Spieth's play, which he didn't.

Oh: Woods trails Spieth by 12, by the way. Tied, by the way, with Rory McIlroy, No. 1 in the world and the pre-tournament favorite, hands-down, and defending champion Bubba Watson.

"I'm still in it," Woods was saying after his first-round 73. Time was he'd be saying, "I'm right there." Meaning he'd be winning before long. But now "I'm still in it" will have to do. "I'm only nine back," he said.

Only nine back? Well, there was a time when nine behind was only a point of reference for Woods and hardly a real source of comfort for those in front of him. But that was before that cascade of problems and injuries befell him, before age encroached - he's now 39 - and before his game began coming apart in nervous little twitches.

Nothing Woods said suggested he thought Spieth had done anything remarkable. Augusta National was a yielding and sympathetic golf course. "The scoring conditions were there because the greens were soft," Woods said. "We could be aggressive." Spieth shot 64 on the soft course, Woods a 73 on the same course.

And was it familiar, a 21-year-old running away from the field? Woods was only 21 when he raced to his first Masters titles by 18 shots. "Well, the big difference is that he's … put out a big enough gap between him and the rest of the pack," Woods said. Woods remembered having a three-shot lead. Spieth is leading by five over Charley Hoffman.

The enduring question is why did Woods choose the Masters to make his comeback from the painful day in February? When a golfer hasn't played a competitive round in weeks, does he want to take a crack at the pressure of the Masters, first of golf's four majors, on a demanding Augusta National? Especially since he had put on a display of chipping yips that would have frozen the blood of any teacher in history. He wanted to take that game to the tight lies of Augusta?

Was he looking for attention? Recall that he had made the announcement that he wouldn't return until his game was ready, and that was the repeat of an earlier announcement, and came at the time when McIlory was heating, and against a backdrop of Spieth turning really hot, winning the Valspar Championship and finished second in his next two starts.

On the other hand, maybe it was just timing. Woods is still driven by his quest for majors, on hold at 14 in the chase of Jack Nicklaus's 18. But Woods hadn't won one since the 2008 U.S. Open, and at age 39, the clock isn't merely ticking, it's booming like Big Ben. Woods ran away with his first Masters, in 1997, a kid of 21. He won in 2001, '02 and '05.

"Very proud of what I've done," he said. "To be able to dig it out the way I have. All the hard work … I was at a pretty low one in my career, but to basically change an entire pattern like that, and put it in a position where I can compete in a major championship like this, is something I'm very proud of."

That's against an echo from the day when he would say he'd won with his "B Game," the idea being he'd beaten the best without his best.

Now it was an accomplishment that he'd quieted the chipping yips. For now, anyway, the yips being golf's version of a tantrum child. He'd been leaving them short of the green, hitting the green and dying, blading across the green. It was textbook weekender golf.

"It's my strength again," he said after the first round. "That's why I took time off. That's why I hit thousands and thousands of shots."

Now, if he could get his putting all the way back.

And then there's the driving. Who can forget that Ryder Cup, how he looked away while Phil Mickelson was swatting foul balls all over the place. Woods has had trouble keeping his driving under control. Awkwardly enough, he's been driving like Mickelson.

He's been doing OK here in the Masters. But there was No. 9 in the first round. He slapped his tee shot into No. 1 fairway.

Marino Parascenzo can assure you that hanging around with great and famous pro golfers does nothing to help your game. They just won't give you the secret. But it makes for a dandy career. As a sportswriter with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (now retired), Parascenzo covered the whole gamut of sports - Steelers, Pirates, Penguins, Pitt, Penn State and others - but golf was his favorite. As the beat writer for the paper, he covered all the stateside majors and numerous other pro events, and as a freelancer handled reporting duties for the British Open and other tournaments overseas - in Britain, Spain, Italy, the Caribbean, South Africa, China and Malayasia. Marino has won more than 20 national golf-writing awards, along with state and regional honors. He has received the Memorial Tournament's Golf Journalism Award and the PGA of America's Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism. In April 2015 Marino was honored with the Masters Major Achievement Award. His writing has appeared in numerous magazines, among them Sports Illustrated, Golf Digest and Golf Magazine, and in anthologies and foreign publications. He also wrote the history of Oakmont Country Club. Parascenzo is a former president of the Golf Writers Association of America and is on its board of directors. He is the founder and chairman of the GWAA's Journalism Scholarship Program. He is a graduate of Penn State and was an adjunct instructor in journalism at Pitt.