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Tiger Woods

Tiger Woods admits he's nervous before returning to competition this week

Steve DiMeglio
USA TODAY Sports

NASSAU, Bahamas — On a quiet, windy Sunday in the paradise that is the Bahamas, Tiger Woods was working up a sweat on the back of the range at Albany Golf Club.

USA vice-captain Tiger Woods on the tenth hole during a practice round for the 41st Ryder Cup at Hazeltine National Golf Club on Sept. 29.

For more than two hours, and with his trusted caddie, Joey LaCava, by his side, Woods sent one Bridgestone 330S golf ball after another into the horizon, working on all trajectories and shot shapes with all sorts of clubs. While he hasn’t played in nearly 470 days — and his world ranking has dropped to No. 879  — the 14-time major champion and the winner of 79 PGA Tour titles is finally set to return to competitive golf this week in the Hero World Challenge at Albany, which begins Thursday and benefits the Tiger Woods Foundation.

“I’m ready to go,” Woods said.

In between shots, Woods said he’s heard all the rumors about his demise — “I’m not dead,” he said — since he abandoned his return to golf in October at the Safeway Classic and Turkish Airlines Open. That he was hurt again, his chipping woes had returned, that he had stage fright. As he said, his game was vulnerable back then.

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That’s no longer the case. Woods, who pulled out three days before the Safeway was to begin, said he was mentally drained from his work as an assistant captain for the winning USA squad in the Ryder Cup, so that didn’t help. And he knew his game just wasn’t ready for prime time at the time.

“I have way more shots now, because I’ve played way more golf. I only had a handful of shots back then,” said Woods, who played nine holes at Albany shortly after he arrived on Saturday. “And you just saw a session where I hit everything. And I had control of everything. I can hit all the shots now, on call. ...

“It was a smart decision in the end to pull out of the tournaments. The competitor inside me wanted to go so badly, I was itching to go, I had been playing at home, and I thought I could get it around. I had played feeling worse and won golf tournaments. But I finally decided why rush … I had waited more than a year, so let’s wait a little more and get it right.”

Woods said he has his speed back and his distance is there — he was carrying his 3-iron 235 yards, his 5-wood 260, the 3-wood 280 and the driver 300-310, with Trackman scrutinizing each shot for spin rate, ball speed, swing speed and distance, among other variables. While he has to continue to monitor the wear and tear on his body and seek treatment after every round and every long session on the range, he added that he is healthy.

Proof can be found in all the testing he has done with new clubs and golf balls since Nike left the equipment business in August. On Sunday, he was working out various metal woods and had the same Nike irons and wedges in his bag that he used the last time he played, in the 2015 Wyndham Championship where he tied for 10th. He has a Scotty Cameron putter. And Woods – for now – has settled on the Bridgestone golf ball. He will continue testing various clubs, trying to find the perfect shaft, lie and loft he desires in every club.

And that’s a lot of shafts, club heads and lift and lie settings to deal with.

“The golf ball is the most important club in the bag,” Woods said. “ … It’s a lot of testing. But I’m getting my golf stamina back so I can do this.”

In addition to all the testing he has done, he built up his golf stamina toward the end of October and in November as LaCava made two trips to the Medalist Golf Club in Florida. On LaCava’s urging, Woods started walking more holes instead of riding in a cart. On the first trip, Woods played nine holes, then nine the next day, 12 the next and 15 the next. On the second trip, Woods went 18 holes each of four consecutive days, simulating a tournament round as much as he could with LaCava on the bag.

“That’s easy,” Woods said of walking. “I can run with my kids now.”

What has stayed the same is what’s inside Woods.

“Yes, I’m nervous,” said Woods, who is still working with swing coach Chris Como. “I’m nervous for every tournament I play in, whether it’s after a layoff, or six in a row, or a major. I care. If I care, I’m nervous. And it’s good to be that way. To have that nervous energy and channel it, into aggression, into focus, into concentration, that’s good stuff.

“If I wasn’t nervous, that would mean I didn’t care. I don’t want to be out there flat. I want to be out here so bad. And now I am.”

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