All Signs Point to Tiger Woods Playing Masters, but Is He Really Ready to Win?

Only Tiger Woods knows for sure if he's ready to conquer another Masters. The rest of us are only left to guess. More than guess. We can anticipate. He didn’t spend all these weeks working on his game, didn’t fly to Augusta to get in a presumed practice round for nothing.

He’s done everything he could to participate in the Masters. If he’s physically ready—and he appears to be quite healthy and eager—if he’s escaped the dreadful yips that afflicted him at Phoenix, at San Diego, haunted by a short game that was embarrassingly poor, who knows what's in store?

It’s been an agonizing few months for Woods since he was carted off Torrey Pines on February 6, 12 holes into the Farmers Insurance Open. His back had stiffened in the cool breeze off the Pacific—in Tiger talk, his “glutes are shutting off,” as he told Ron Kaspriske of Golf Digest—and he withdrew. And after the missed cut a week earlier in Arizona, we were wondering where it all would lead.

Ultimately, it led back to his home base in Florida, where, behind secrecy that would have made the old Kremlin executives proud, Woods has worked on his game, has competed against himself and others, and according to several reports, via Kyle Porter of CBS Sports, looked like the Woods we knew, shooting a 66, putting beautifully.

It’s not the Masters, not even the minor league Web.com Tour. It's just rounds on his home course, Medalist Golf Club; the only pressure present is the internal pressure to get back to what he used to be—or at least a reasonable facsimile.

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There’s been a "will he or won’t he" cloud hovering over everything Woods has done. What if he plays and shoots in the 80s? What if Woods doesn’t play; is that admitting defeat? It’s been a difficult 12 months for Woods. Remember, we were asking the same question—would he play in the Masters—a year ago. The issue then was primarily physical—the back pain that months later forced him to undergo surgery.

Woods didn’t play in 2014, missing his first Masters since turning pro in 1996 and missing the first major of the year—the same one where in 1997 he announced his greatness with a record-smashing victory, the same tournament he’s won four times.

In his head, Woods can probably hear the words of his late father, Earl.

“Let the legend grow,” Earl Woods told his protege of a son. And so Tiger, with his 14 major championships, his 79 tour victories, second only to the late Sam Snead, has done exactly that.

Until recently.

His last major, the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey—and considering what happened there two months ago, the word "irony" would be appropriate—is seven years in the distance. He is 39—an old 39 the critics contend— and the reality is if you don’t enter, you can’t win.

Bubba Watson, the defending champion, said Tuesday on CBS This Morning (via Emily Kay of SB Nation) if he were to bet, he’d wager Woods will play. All we’ve heard from Woods (or rather read on his website or heard from his agent, Mark Steinberg) was he didn’t feel he could go in the Arnold Palmer Invitational, an event he’d won numerous times.

Already, with speculation Woods will enter the Masters—unlike a normal tour event, he could wait until the first round to make a decision—individuals have been taking shots at him, writing he has no chance to win. And he probably doesn't, after not playing for so long and failing to make a cut in the last two tournaments he entered.

Year	Score	Result
2006	-4	T3
2007	+3	T2
2008	-5	2
2009	-8	T6
2010	-11	T4
2011	-10	T4
2012	+5	T40
2013	-5	T4
2014	N/A	Did Not Compete

Still, that’s beside the point. And Woods has shown us before what is possible, coming back in difficult situations. He took weeks off in 2013 and then won on his return to Torrey Pines. And after being absent for months because of his sexual dalliances and rehab, he burst back with a fourth-place finish in the 2010 Masters.

Woods has dropped out of the top 100 of the world ranking, but that is more a reflection of his inactivity than his inability. It’s impossible to earn points if you’re not playing, so that guideline is to be ignored.

More important than anything, Woods needs to regain his confidence. He’s working with his third swing instructor in the last few years, although he calls Chris Como, who replaced Sean Foley, who replaced Hank Haney, a consultant.

A golfer can’t be out there thinking, “Let’s see, do I swing this way or that way?” 

The only way Woods will prove to himself and to the world of golf he is the dogged competitor who had fans shouting, “You da man,” is to get out there and play. Which almost certainly he will do in the 2015 Masters, no matter the results.