And at 508 days, Tiger Woods was resurrected

The resurrected.

The myth that always returns.

There have been many Tiger Woods comebacks.

Five back operations, another five knee operations, an opiate dependency and a marital scandal that ended in divorce have given for many resurrections in almost 26 years of professional career.

But no comeback has been like this.

El Tigre returned to play an official round of golf this Thursday after 508 days, the longest time off in his entire imperial career (he did not compete for 469 days between August 2015 and December 2016), 14 months after being destroyed his right leg in a traffic accident in Los Angeles.

That he has achieved it at 46 years old, with a body bruised by injuries and blows, is only the property of whoever rivals whoever is for being the mentally toughest competitor in the history of the sport.

A giant with feet of clay (or metal, it would be better to say, because of the rods, plates and screws that cover his right leg), but a giant nonetheless.

Tiger signed 71 strokes, one under par, on the day of his last resurrection.

It must have been at the Augusta Masters, where he inaugurated an era with his victory a quarter of a century ago, the first major player to play, the first to win, number one in his collection of 15. There, where he had struck his last official blow , on November 15, 2020 at the pandemic Masters that Dustin Johnson endorsed with -20, beating Tiger's record of -18 in 97. Woods dressed him in the green jacket that a course earlier had returned him to heaven , a great conquered 11 years after the previous one, 14 since his last bingo in Augusta.

He then climbed "Everest" overcoming another back operation.

You have to be a robot to escape from such an atmosphere.

Electricity could be felt in the air as Tiger, in a bright pink jersey, an iceberg under all eyes (who would think he's number 973 in the world rankings) walked from the clubhouse to the one tee through a human corridor.

There the military training of his father, Earl, flew over again, learning that in those moments there is only the ball, the fairway, the hole, the stick, him.

Everything else is invisible.

A void in his mind.

He could also remember the meditation he cultivated with his mother, Kultida, inner peace in the midst of the storm.

The big one who won lame

508 days later he was back on the ball in an official tournament.

He was the same devourer as always, but his body had an even bigger scar than the previous ones, a seam that forces him to make a different swing, conditioned by reduced mobility.

His gesture is suffering.

The champion moves slowly, with difficulty, as if breaking inside, enduring the pain in his leg and also in his soul, because Tiger has pushed his physical resistance to the limit but nothing hurts him more than not being Tiger.

That first ball landed short of a

.

He saved the par with a good

, and unsuccessfully putted for

on the next par-five hole.

He thus traveled wide until a turning point came in the fifth.

Tiger saw the ball inside when it hit to discount a hit to the card, and he saw it so inside that he even made the gesture of going for it to get it out of the hole, but in the last turn he cheated his destiny and drew a

that made back to Woods with a pissed off face.

Had that angered the champion?

A hungry Tiger whose food is taken from his mouth... At par three of the six, the next stop, he gave up.

.

Here is your first fist pump ☢️💯⚠️ pic.twitter.com/B9LO3cAsR7

— TWLEGION (@TWlegion) April 7, 2022

Tiger had started the engines but today it runs like a diesel.

That extra gear now looks rusty.

In the eight, another par five, he had to take a step back after a succession of bad shots: a short second, a long

, a missed

and a

.

He returns to the starting square with the second lap ahead.

Having overcome the Amen Corner triangle, Woods resisted until reaching another oasis, the par five of 13, and there he did scratch the birdie after hitting for an eagle.

He was already clinging to the field with nails: the failed

on 14 (

) was followed by par on 15 and finally a

house mark at 16 to return to the red and keep that lead (-1).

“I am as sore as I expected, but I have prepared myself to resist,” she explained.

Tiger already knows what it's like to win lame a big one.

It was at the 2008 US Open, in Torrey Pines, when he made the barbarity of playing the last two days, and a playoff with Rocco Mediate, with a torn anterior cruciate ligament and two stress fractures in the tibia.

Woods hit and fell to his knees, struck down with pain.

He used the stick to support himself as if it were an old man's cane.

Breaking up was the price he was willing to pay to win another big one, always on the hunt for Jack Nicklaus' 18.

He was not crowned again until 2019.

Whether Tiger would play the Masters has been the big question in the golf world in recent days.

What will he be able to do, if his leg holds him, is the next big question.

In any case, this Augusta Masters is the Tiger Masters.

Augusta Masters standings.

TV:

You can follow EL PAÍS Deportes on