Tiger knows all this, too.

As a teenager he was a golf nerd, a student of the game’s history. Little wonder he didn’t have many girlfriends. Consider his opening gambit – Did you know Julian Boros won the 1968 PGA Championship at Pecan Valley aged 48? Did you know Bob Charles and Arnold Palmer came equal second? Wanna get a soda?

Tiger Woods grew up an only child without many friends and spent his formative years spanking golf balls while his dad taught him Jedi mind tricks. So long and so often did Tiger spank golf balls that when he became famous, he went out to a nightclub with Derek Jeter and Michael Jordan, and asked them how to talk to girls.

“Just tell ‘em your Tiger Woods,” Jordan replied like it were obvious. Tiger took the advice on board and introduced himself many, many times and we found that he wasn’t quite able to man-manage the life of the tour tool man. He admitted to sleeping with 120 women. He was rich and famous and good looking. But he was not very well.

He seems a lot better now, though, our Tiger, as he heads towards the big five-oh. He appears reflective and mellow and humble, and you don’t have to know him to see that. The kids are good, the ex-wife doesn’t hate him, he’s not in pain. The Emperor has new (Sun Day Red) clothes. Tiger Woods, it appears, is happy enough with Tiger Woods.

But he’ll want his Hogan Moment.

Tiger prepares at Augusta ahead of a berth at a sixth green jacket. PHOTO: Getty Images.

In April of 2010, five months after his oddly corporate, stage-managed mea culpa following the fire hydrant incident, and all the rest, Tiger Woods turned up at Augusta National for the Masters and said his enforced break was “very similar to what Hogan went through coming off the accident.”

“I just couldn’t play that much and when you can’t play, you have to concentrate on your practice,” Woods said, as, like so many Navy SEALs, golf historians pursed lips and did their best Marge Simpson: hhmmm.

One of those was Jim Dodson, author of books about Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Sam Snead and Byron Nelson. Yet Dodson does believe that Woods’ win in the 2019 Masters, was “that rare moment in sports, where you see that magic that created him.”

“And maybe that was the last we’ll see of that,” he told The Los Angeles Times. “But I’m not so sure. I really think this is a guy whose athleticism and whose passion and the things that got him here will bring him back in a year or two.”

It already has. A nudge over 14 months since his car accident Tiger Woods returned to Augusta to play in the 2022 Masters and finished round one in the top-10 after shooting one-under 71. He followed that with a two-over 74 – which ended up okay considering he’d gone four-over after five holes. He made the cut (+4) by three shots.

He then limped through round three on his way to six-over 78, though hit the ball pretty well tee to green. His worst ever 18-hole score at Augusta came about because of four three-putts and one four-putt. Can you blame the bung leg on that? By the Sunday he was using his clubs like a cane, helping him to walk up hills as he grimaced in pain. He shot another 78. Hogan’s hero would have to wait.

Twelve months later, Augusta was whipped by cold, wet, mongrel rain. It’s a tough-enough up-and-down anyway, Augusta – that year it was like walking in slurry.

“If he didn’t have to walk up these hills and have all of that, I’d say he’d be one of the favourites,” Rory McIlroy said. “I mean, he’s got all of the shots. It’s just that physical limitation of walking 72 holes, especially on a golf course as hilly as this.”

Woods made the cut on the number (+3) before hobbling around on the Saturday like an old boy on Anzac Day. He played seven holes on a rain-affected day three but did not return after a break. By the Sunday, as Mickelson was blazing his way to 65 and T2, Woods had his feet up, nursing debilitating plantar fasciitis. “I don’t play as many tournaments and I don’t practice as much,” Woods said. “I’m limited in what I can do.”

He’s less limited now. He’s fit and has known months of the finest physiotherapy. He’s honed his short game. He can practice plenty, while playing sparsely. His ankle “doesn’t hurt anymore – the bones aren’t rubbing anymore,” he said.

He’s a gym-head. Look at his muscles. He likes working out. He likes looking good. He enjoys ‘gym bro’ culture. He’s disciplined. He understands: put in, get out. He has access to the finest sports science. He has his own chefs preparing protein-rich meals. He has wrist-watch technology monitoring his vitals. He lives in a mansion with a gym and a basketball court and a swimming pool, and he has personal trainers, and access to whatever he needs to make the best Tiger Woods.

Who has more mental strength, belief, spirt, mojo? Who can call on more positive memories? Who else has won the Masters five times? Who else made the cut last year on one leg? Who else, along with Gary Player and Fred Couples, has made the cut at the Masters 23 times in a row? And who would like to own that record on his own? (Hint: Tiger Woods.)

“You never count Tiger out. He can do incredible things,” Rory McIlroy said in 2023. “You watch him on the range and you watch him hit chips and putts, and he’s got all the aspects of the game that you need to succeed around [Augusta]. It’s just the toll it takes on his body to compete over 72 holes.”

Stringing together four consecutive competitive rounds is, of course, The Question, though that’s as true for McIlroy as it is for Jasper Stubbs. And again: old guys have done it before, and in recent times. Mickelson won the PGA Championship aged 50 and shot 65 at Augusta last round last year. Watson was an 8-iron and two putts from winning the Open Championship aged 59. And Tiger Woods has more majors than both those guys combined.

And when he gets that club twirling and sets off down the fairway with that cool, ‘jungle cat’ lope going on, you know the one, that walk, when he’s the coolest cat either side of the ropes, a finely-built and muscular dude striding down the fairway, shoulders back, biceps jacked, a wide receiver, an athlete, ogled by thousands of lumpy middle-aged men in the uniform of the Wednesday comp chopper, and he’s believing it, feeling it … friend, you can’t stop looking at him.

For sure, he’ll have to adjust his swing for his poor, beaten-up old body. But he can do that. What - you think he can’t do that? It’s Tiger Woods, man. He knows his golf swing, knows how all his bits work together.

And he knows Augusta National, a course where knowledge of the grains, the gradients, the swales, the contours, the subtle slopes, the not-subtle slopes, the slopes like skateboard parks, is key. Outside Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Augusta National greensman of 51 years, Ike Stokes, what living human being knows the former Indigo plantation’s subtleties better?

Back in 2019, only Tiger Woods truly believed he could win the Masters. Today there’d be roughly the same number of people – especially following his shank and flu-ravaged withdrawal in round two of the Genesis Invitational – who believe he can win the 2024 Masters. But know this, sports fan: if Tiger Woods is playing, then he’s competing. And if he’s competing, he can make the cut. And if he does that he can win. Believe it. 

Tiger Woods after Masters victory number 5. PHOTO: Getty Images.

TIGER’S PATH TO VICTORY

The Masters is a limited field with players invited under rules formulated by the green jackets of Augusta National, which means a line can be drawn through more than half the field. Old boys, amateurs, first timers, they cannot compete with the tournament’s big dogs, at least not for 72 holes. Fairy tales don’t happen in the storied golf tournament at the storied course in Georgia.

Actually, scratch that – they do.

Though it’s taken the two greatest golfers of all time to make them happen. In 1997 Tiger Woods smashed the field as a 21-year-old before summoning every scrap of muscle memory in his 43-year-old frame to carve out a famous win in 2019. Only 46-year-old Jack Nicklaus’s victory in 1986 was as momentous.

And thus, we’ve found so many golfers who almost certainly will not win.

Yes, it’s nice that Augusta National offers life-time exemptions for past champions, but it means you can run a line through Fred Couples, Bernhard Langer, Jose Maria Olazabal, Charl Schwartzel, Vijay Singh, Bubba Watson, Mike Weir, Zach Johnson and Danny Willett.

No amateur has ever won the Masters so forget Christo Lamprecht, Santiago de la Fuente, Neal Shipley, Stewart Hagestad and, prove us wrong, brother, we’d love it, Asia-Pacific Amateur champion Jasper Stubbs.

Three people have won the Masters on debut: Horton Smith in 1934 and Gene Sarazen in the second one a year later. Fuzzy Zoeller (1979) is the only player since, which means we’ll scrub, with some trepidation, Ludvig Åberg, Wyndham Clark, Eric Cole, Nicolai Højgaard, Denny McCarthy, Grayson Murray, Matthieu Pavon, Nick Dunlap, Jake Knapp and Adam Schenk.

We’ll also scrub those heading to Augusta only because they got hot once last year and won a PGA Tour event. Good luck, you’ll need it Chris Kirk, Lee Hodges, Luke List, Erik van Rooyen and much as we like him Camilo Villegas.

Taylor Moore’s in the field because he made the PGA Tour’s season-ending Tour Championship. Good for him. But he won’t win the Masters. And we’ll also strike out, just because we don’t think they’ll win, Russell Henley, Thorbjorn Olesen, Ryo Hisatsune, Sepp Straka, Adam Hadwin, Gary Woodland, JT Poston, Ryan Fox, Kurt Kitayama, Nick Taylor, Rickie Fowler, Lucas Glover, Emiliano Grillo and Corey Conners.

All of which means … Tiger Woods, if he’s to win the 2024 Masters, must shoot a lower four-round score than 36 players: Patrick Reed, Jordan Spieth, Hideki Matsuyama, Adam Scott, Jon Rahm, Phil Mickelson, Min Woo Lee, Scottie Scheffler, Viktor Hovland, Sahith Theegala, Xander Schauffele, Cameron Young, Rory McIlroy, Jason Day, Keegan Bradley, Tony Finau, Joaquin Neimann, Sam Burns, Patrick Cantlay, Tommy Fleetwood, Tyrell Hatton, Justin Rose, Max Homa, Sungjae Im, Si Woo Kim, Matt Fitzpatrick, Cam Davis, Bryson DeChambeau, Brian Harman, Shane Lowry, Collin Morikawa, Cameron Smith, Tom Kim, Brooks Koepka and Tiger’s mate Justin Thomas.