Tiger Woods returns, but he’s probably not playing to win

Tiger Woods returns to competitive golf this week, but he just may do more hosting than competing at his own tournament, the Quicken Loans National. For the first time since early March at Doral, Woods will be hitting golf shots during a PGA Tour event, but this would seem to be a test run on his microdiscectomy-repaired back.

Back in March, when Tiger Woods opted out of the Arnold Palmer Invitational, presumably just to get an extra week of rest before another run at a fifth Masters, I wrote that he was the PGA Tour’s biggest problem and it was in full view at Bay Hill. The intervening weeks have only amplified that struggle with a series of unknown winners, underwhelming closing efforts from secondary stars, plunging TV ratings and interest, and a couple lazy Sundays at the season’s first two majors. It’s been an ugly season for the PGA Tour and golf, and while we did little to experiment or prepare for that reckoning when Tiger leaves the game for good, let’s just set it all aside and run back out of sight of that oncoming train.

In his unexpected Friday afternoon announcement that he’d play at the Quicken Loans National, Woods wrote, “I will be a bit rusty but I want to play myself back into competitive shape.” That statement is probably a pretty accurate description of how he’s approaching the tournament and what he’s trying to accomplish at Congressional. But it’s also a pretty significant departure from what we’ve always heard and what we always get from the most competitive golfer ever. No matter the venue, his form, his health, appearance fees or anything else, Woods always vehemently maintained that he had entered an event simply to win, showed up to win and expected to win. It might have been the Frys.com Open in an obvious attempt just to get some more competitive reps for a Presidents Cup spot, but Tiger would still deflect all those other obvious and transparent motivations to play a golf tournament.

In that statement, however, Woods makes it clear he’s returning this week just to work out the back, shake off the rust and play what will probably be his only start before the Open Championship at Royal Liverpool in mid-July. The terse Facebook post announcing his return was, like all public Tiger utterances and statements, sanitized. We’ll also likely get the usually vacuous press conference on Tuesday where Tiger spends a lot of time saying very little. But the admittance that he’s just trying to play himself back into shape, from a guy who has won a major championship on a broken leg, was yet another big shift for Woods as he continues to try and navigate his way through this fascinating stretch of his career.

It’s now been over six years since he won on that broken leg, his last major championship coming at that 2008 U.S. Open. He’s changed swings, took time off due to personal scandal, and had his bulked up and tuned body break down in all manner of ways. If not for this sped-up recovery, he was expected to miss his own tournament for the fourth time in its eight-year history. Given the conditions, Congressional’s thicker 4-inch rough, this isn’t exactly an ideal spot for Tiger to get some competitive reps while putting his back at the least amount of risk. But the Open Championship is fast approaching, and the singular focus of Tiger’s career is that majors chase, to the point where winning these non-major PGA Tour events often only accentuates the criticism of his recent failures at the biggest events. This week is different, however, and CBS Sports analyst Nick Faldo, who was “shocked” to see him return so soon, said the goal for Tiger should be making the cut this week at Congressional.

Just making the cut and getting into shape have never been the reasons why Tiger Woods plays a golf tournament. But that’s what we’ll get this week, and it’s the latest indicator of the odd and unpredictable spot we’re now in with the most dominant and predictable force in the history of the sport. This time last year, we knew Tiger was going to be a factor almost every week he teed it up, even if he continued to struggle on the weekends at majors. He was going to be there no matter what, and was on his way to a five-win Player of the Year honor. But when the calendar flipped to 2014, it was an unpredictable mess from week to week until he shut it down at the end of March. Now he’s got a little more than two months left in the most meaningful part of his season, and we have no idea if we’ll get a guy competing for tournament wins or just trying to stay uninjured.