It is time we got excited about a Tiger Woods return

It has been a while.

A quick search in the world rankings will tell you that Tiger Woods is now ranked 1199 in the world. Never before has the return of the 1199th ranked golfer been so hotly anticipated. Woods has not played since February, when he withdrew from competitive action through injury, but now he's back for yet another return. It's hard to be hopeful about the return of the greatest golfer of all time (sorry Jack Nicklaus) but, at the same time, it is hard not to be. In his prime, Woods exhibited the closest thing to the perfect golf game that anyone has ever seen and amassed 14 majors. So, when the 42-year-old lines out at the Hero World Challenge people are naturally going to get excited that something special could happen. Woods is rightfully bottom of the pile with bookmakers to win the competition. Competing alongside the world number one and three, it is fair to accept that the world number 1199 is the least likely to win the tournament but the talk from the Bahamas suggests that maybe just maybe Woods could be back playing good golf. World number one and notorious long hitter, Dustin Johnson admitted that in practice rounds that Woods out drove him at times:

"He hit it by me a couple of times. Did I bomb one and he hit it past me? No. But he did hit it past me a few times. He was moving it."

And there have been plenty of videos of Woods off the tee that looks promising. https://twitter.com/robstrano/status/935160065102897152 https://twitter.com/PGATOUR/status/935259991425949696 https://twitter.com/PGATOUR/status/935159466709979136 Todd Lewis from Golf Channel followed Woods around in his nine hold practice round and revealed that the former world number one shot well:

"I followed Tiger Woods this morning while he played alongside Patrick Reed for a 9 hole practice round. He had plenty of pop in his driver. He also scored well, by my count playing the front under par. Bottom line, he looks ready to compete at the highest level."

https://twitter.com/ToddLewisGC/status/935219974322388993 Reed said after the practice of Woods:

"He seemed to have control not only of the golf club, but his body."

Reed did his best to make fans excited about Woods' return:

“The last time I played with him it looked like there was a little bit of hesitation going after different shots, like bunker shots, shots out of the rough. This time he was fully committed and fully trusting his body that there would be no pain,” Reed said. “That’s the biggest thing for me; if he stays healthy and his body cooperates the way it’s supposed to, he’ll be back to playing golf, hopefully like he used to play.

“He had pep in his step. He was in high spirits. I was shocked how fluid his swing was and how far the ball was going. He had some speed behind it. He’s always been a little longer than me, but some of those drives today, he got it out there. He was hitting the stinger here and there, hitting bunker shots, hitting balls out of the rough … there just wasn’t any hesitation in his body to hit those shots. That’s key. If he stays healthy, we’ll see Tiger again.”

Maybe, just maybe, it's time to get our hopes up.