Tiger Woods Shows Resiliency with Win at Arnold Palmer Invitational

Well, the guy just keeps on coming.

Through reconstructive knee surgery, an embarrassing sex scandal, an ugly divorce, Achilles injuries to both legs, a withdraw from the WGC Cadillac Championship just two weeks ago, every golf fan and analyst (including myself) questioning his ability to make the big putts on Sunday and guys like Greg Norman questioning whether or not he’d even win again, the guy just keeps on coming.

Tiger Woods won the Arnold Palmer Invitational by five strokes yesterday afternoon for his first official PGA Tour victory since the 2009 BMW Championship.

Woods’ five-stroke margin of victory was the largest by anyone on tour since Rory McIlory won the 2011 U.S. Open by eight strokes.

It was vintage Woods. He posted a solid two-under-par round and sunk every putt he needed while those around him succumbed to the pressure and difficult course conditions. 

Even with Woods’ closest pursuer, Graeme McDowell, dropping miracle 40- and 50-foot birdie and eagle putts (as he did on holes three and six), it did little to faze Woods.

Woods followed up McDowell’s bomb on No. 3 by sinking a birdie putt of his own.

After McDowell sunk a 50-footer for eagle on the par-five sixth, Woods calmly two-putted for yet another stress-free birdie to keep McDowell at arm’s length.

“I never really got close enough to him,” McDowell said after the round.

“Tiger played great, controlled his ball well, made fewer mistakes than I did and I just never really got close enough to him.”

Is the old Tiger back? Maybe, maybe not. I, unfortunately, don’t have a crystal ball. Otherwise, I’d be out in Las Vegas rolling around in a sea of cash.

It will take a lot more than one tournament to truly evaluate the state of Woods’ game and particularly his putter. Woods has been streaky with the flat stick for several years now, although last week he finally put together four solid days on the greens. But even going back to the pre-fire hydrant days of 2009, Woods could easily follow up a solid week on the greens with a week where he’d have a hard time rolling a golf ball through a basketball hoop.

Whatever the future may hold for Woods, one thing is for certain, the guy will just keep on coming.

That’s just Tiger Woods.

Woods puts in the time, he remains patient, he believes in what he is doing with his golf swing and he never seems to waiver from his life-long goal of chasing down Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 major championships.

Woods has been telling the media for two years that rebuilding his game is a process, and who knows, he may have been right all along. Perhaps we are seeing him come to the end of a two-year learning curve. Perhaps the “process” has concluded and we’re about to see Woods go on another dominant run similar to what we saw in 2000-2002 and 2005-2008.

Or perhaps Woods may remain inconsistent for the remainder of his career, putting together good weeks here and there but lacking health and putting nerve to put together another truly dominant stretch.  

Whatever the case may be, it’s unlikely that we will see the end of Tiger Woods any time soon.  

Woods may be a lot of things, but as we have seen time and time again, a quitter is certainly not one of them.

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