Tiger Woods Returned to Golf With Opponents Firmly in His Corner

At the Ryder Cup, the American players got a glimpse of the chess game that is Woods’s life and how he must always be thinking two or three moves ahead. Knowing that he had planned to return for the PGA Tour’s 2016-17 season-opening event in California, which started 11 days after the Ryder Cup ended, the American players tried to coax Woods to hit balls with them.

Brandt Snedeker recalled, “He said, ‘Man, do you know what a distraction that would have been if I had been out there hitting range balls with you?’”

Snedeker added, “We hadn’t even thought about that.”

Snedeker was vacationing in Fiji when he heard that Woods had withdrawn from the event in California three days before the first round. The timing struck many as curious, but to Snedeker, it made complete sense. His initial reaction, he said, was, “It’s probably because he was with us at the Ryder Cup and lost that week of practice.”

Other teammates came to the same conclusion. Rickie Fowler, who lives near Woods in Florida and plays out of the same club, texted Woods regularly to ask if he would like to practice or play money games.

“Obviously trying to kick him in the butt to try to keep him motivated to get back out here and play,” Fowler said.

After they were done with their work, Fowler joined Woods a couple of times for unhurried dinners at the restaurant that Woods owns near the course.

“He loves the game and he wants to be back playing well,” Fowler said. “I know it’s probably been very hard for him the last two years, because golf is something he loves to do and he hasn’t been able to do it.”

The support for Woods has not been limited to the American players. The Englishman Justin Rose, a member of the losing Ryder Cup team, spent time on the range last week showing Woods how to get the most out of his adjustable TaylorMade driver, which Woods is experimenting with as he searches for replacements for the woods that Nike has phased out.

“I think they’re all ready to, I don’t want to use the phrase ‘pay it back,’ but I think they all want him to see him do well and be positive with it,” said Woods’s caddie, Joe LaCava.

The Ryder Cup team’s thread of group texts has become a daisy chain of support for Woods, with Patrick Reed and Bubba Watson, who also served as an assistant captain, among the most active. Reed likes to needle Woods, a 79-time tour winner, by referring to him as his “pod leader.”

After the United States clinched the Ryder Cup, Watson blurted out in the news conference: “I have Tiger’s cellphone number now. Yes! I’m going to text you all the time.” On Tuesday, Woods was asked if Watson had been true to his word. He mouthed an exaggerated “Yes,” but then he broke into a broad smile.

Woods’s fellow golfers, including those like Zach Johnson and Snedeker who are old enough to have lost to him when he was in his prime, read the situation right. They recognized that the first step to making Woods great again was acknowledging his ordinariness.

“You have to joke around with Tiger because he’s lived under a microscope his whole life,” Reed said. “And he’s watched everything he’s had to say everywhere because anything he says or does will get scrutinized. He doesn’t want to be treated like one of the best athletes in the world. He wants to be treated like a normal human being.”