THE MIRACLE OF TIGER AND CHARLIE WOODS: AN ODE TO MEDICAL SCIENCE

As we savor a scene unthinkable only weeks ago — Tiger returning from the dead to play competitively with his son, planting optimism about the future — also salute the doctors who made this possible

    It's tempting to let the imagination dance, to pull out the Big Bertha driver for a narrative reach, to begin fantasizing how this fairy tale might take shape. Are we allowed to fancy a day when Tiger Woods, tormented by life and back from the dead, wins again on the PGA Tour before giving way to his son, Charlie, who seizes the best lessons of his father — and buries the worst — to become a golf legend himself?

     Before we genuflect, before we immerse ourselves in premature hope and awe, let's pause and recognize why such a delightfully preposterous thought is even possible today.

     Medical science.

     Sure, gaze incredulously at the walking, talking, swinging, grimacing, laboring, grinning accident survivor as if he's not from this planet. But also chant the names of the doctors who saved him. We never do that in sports. We should now.

     The man dodged a funeral. His right leg was as mangled as his SUV, begging and screaming to be amputated. He suffered "comminuted open fractures,” a polite description of his bones thrashing through his skin, requiring surgeons to insert a rod into his tibia and screws and pins into his foot and ankle. The question wasn't whether he'd play competitively again. The question was whether Tiger Woods, the man who so often looked like he'd live forever with a club in his hand, would struggle to lead a normal life while tethered to a wheelchair steered by a house servant on Jupiter Island. Even his history of overcoming health crises — five comebacks alone from spinal surgeries — was clouded by his opioid issues from the recent past, prompting concerns that he would become addicted again.

     James Bond was offed in "No Time To Die," right? Likewise, Woods appeared to have self-canceled the greatest career known to golf, and one of the greatest known to sport, on a curvy backroad in California, where he was speeding maniacally at 85 mph in a 45 zone for reasons still unexplained, and where he's lucky not to have killed himself and others in the area. But there are moments in 21st-century life, as we continue to dread and dodge COVID-19 droplets, that defy mortality. We witnessed one last weekend in Florida. Less than 300 days since his horrific smash-up numbed a sports world still grieving Kobe Bryant's passing in a helicopter crash — and only a few months since he was permitted to leave a makeshift hospital bed at his home and start using crutches — Woods joined his 12-year-old son for two rounds of semi-serious golf, their final 18 holes in matching red shirts and black pants, a father's trademark look as he was winning 15 major championships.

     And damned if the old man and his kid didn't leave us smiling … and contemplating optimistic possibilities in their future … as they almost stole a victory in the PNC Championship with 11 consecutive birdies. Again, 11 straight birdies, a tournament record. The event was supposed to be "a little hit and giggle,'' in Tiger's words, an exhibition at a Ritz-Carlton club pairing major champions with family members. Quickly, it became a divot-in-the-face reminder that Woods, with more painstaking work and considerable patience and proper prayer, could return to a sporadic schedule of tour events at some point — if not a leaderboard. It also awakened us to the prospect of Charlie pursuing his own plateaus in the sport, already in sync with his father's mannerisms and course histrionics, including priceless poses such as raising a putter as his ball curled in the hole, a fist-bump trade after another drilled putt, the raising of an index finger, then a rubbed finger and thumb in a show-me-the-money gesture.

     "We got on a nice heater. Charlie was hitting the ball unbelievable,'' said Tiger, caught by surprise.

     What exactly were we watching here? Certainly, it wasn't the end of Tiger Woods. Rather, it struck me as the rebirth of a man who had eyed a holiday-season weekend with his son as a goal in his recovery — and his return to public life. No one — at least anyone dealing in reality and a sense of what he has overcome and the potential setbacks ahead — is predicting he'll win another major. For the foreseeable future, he'll be playing his rounds in a cart, as he did last weekend, until walking the final 230 yards with his boy. Pride will not allow Woods to drive a cart in a Tour event — certainly not at the Masters — and he already has said he'll play only a limited schedule, at best.

     Still, he actually is talking about returning to competitive golf. To call it a miracle seems an understatement, a misapplication of the word.

     "The competitive juices, they are never going to go away,” Woods said. "This is my environment. This is what I’ve done my entire life. I’m just so thankful to be able to have this opportunity to do it again.

     "The fact that I'm able to have this opportunity this year — even a couple weeks ago we didn't really know whether or not I would be doing this — but here we are. And we had just the best time ever, and I just wish I could have walked down the fairways with him and been side by side with him the entire time. To push as hard as we have the last seven months ... and to have this opportunity to be able to play with my son and to have these memories, it’s worth all the pain.”

     Understandably, he is non-committal about the future, not wanting to roust bad karma again. If there is a pattern in his life, it's that he is touched by tragedy or scandal after his highest peaks. "I like competing. But I'm not going to play a full schedule ever again,'' he said. "I'm going to have to pick and choose what events, and even then, my body might not cooperate with that. So I don't know how many events I'm going to be playing in. It's going to be up to training sessions, practice sessions, recovery tactics — all those different things to be able to do this again because it didn't look good there for a while.

     "It’s tiring out there. But that’s something that I’m going to have to … if I want to compete out here at the tour level, I’m going to have to get the endurance back and hit thousands upon thousands of golf balls. Just takes time.”

     There was a much bigger statement that sliced through the hits and giggles. Circle of life, it's called. A man who has been through hell for as long as his son has been alive — a bimbo brigade of extramarital affairs, a credibility-in-marketing crisis, a relentless barrage of injuries and surgeries, rumors of performance-enhancing-drug use, his 2017 DUI arrest with an opioid cocktail in his system, his Feb. 23 crash on the Palos Verdes peninsula — was back in competition with a not-yet-teenaged son who, rather amazingly, was carrying the tag team. The narrative dovetails back to Tiger, who was taught the game practically out of the womb by an overzealous father just a few miles from the crash scene. Now, it's obvious Tiger has been working diligently with Charlie on his swing and game, if not with the demanding frequency that Earl taught him. Long after the old man has put down his clubs, another Woods has a chance to be a factor in the sport, if not a force.

     "It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it?" Nick Faldo told ESPN.com. "To go from fearing that you can’t use your foot to standing, he’s gone through every stage and ticking every box with sheer hard work and amazing determination. Maybe this was a goal. This was a great goal for him to come and play with his boy.''

     Again, deep breaths are required. When veteran Matt Kuchar said Woods already was capable of competing on the tour, Tiger shot back, "I totally disagree. I'm not at that level. I can't compete against these guys right now, no. It's going to take a lot of work to get to where I can feel I can compete with these guys and be at a high level.''

     Yet jaws are still locked from his 350-yard drive Sunday, and a 4-iron shot he nearly holed from 220 yards Saturday. "That was just ridiculous,” said Justin Thomas, Woods' close friend. "I looked at him, and as soon as he sat in the cart, he just kind of looked at me and smiled. And I knew exactly. That’s the kind of shot he hits when he’s healthy.”

     Let's just stop the imagination romp right here. If there is nothing more to this story, we'll all walk away from the Tiger Woods Experience with a smile and an everlasting precious memory. But if there is more?

     Jesus. Really?

###

     Jay Mariotti, called “the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.