Tiger Woods results: A vintage Tiger posts flawless round at Hero World Challenge

At a certain point during Friday’s round, probably about five holes into it, I stopped paying attention to the score and the leaderboard movement and the swing mechanics — all those typically important clerical matters for a golfer’s status during a tournament.

Instead, I just decided to watch and enjoy the strut. Relish the club twirls. Smirk at the gait. Relax and mimic the rhythmic cruise that Tiger Woods was on during his second competitive round after a 15-month layoff.

Part of what makes Tiger Woods the most captivating golfer of all time is the way in which he kicked everyone’s ass. The shots were just a part of the package. The twirls and the strut made you giggle as he did it and in recent years, we’ve been robbed of that. The rounds have become nothing but grinds and a constant joyless slog.

On Friday at the Hero World Challenge, Tiger put together a round that exceeded all expectations coming into this return from that layoff. The birdies piled up and the bogeys stayed off the card. His irons were fantastic for a second straight day. It seems to be the strong point of a game that looks like it will be, if it’s not already, in fine shape to hang on the most competitive Tour in the world come 2017.

While that form was so encouraging, it was the posture with which he posted that number that felt so rewarding to watch. That was the vintage stuff we wanted and needed. It started early in the round with a club twirl and aggressive tee grab while his ball was still climbing on the sixth hole.

The driver was the club that gave him the most trouble on Thursday. He repeatedly yanked drives hard left but at least it was a consistent one-way miss, as opposed to the two-way miss that had him completely lost in recent seasons. That twirl with the driver was something we’d see throughout the round. He’d miss fairways but that club held its own and he often knew it right away up on the tee box.

The driver twirls were just a piece of the vintage package. Tiger was walking in putts before they dropped. He was bounding off tee boxes before the ball had landed. He was even smiling! The day started with what seemed like depressing news: Justin Rose had to withdraw due to a back injury, putting Tiger officially in last place and forcing him to play by himself just a day after an amusing tweet that he couldn’t wait to “mix it up with the boys.” There were prospects of Tiger playing the final three days alone in last place.

But the solo tee time seemed to help Tiger, who developed a gait and rhythm, and played his front nine in under 90 minutes and his entire round in well under three hours. This was not some five-hour march and grind.

The rhythm made it a comfortable solo cruise into the back nine, the spot on the course that wrecked his comeback round on Thursday. After going out in 33, the same score he posted on the front in Round 1, Tiger added four more birdies on the back nine to get in with a 7-under 65. That’s a number that few, aside from the most ardent Tiger truthers, anticipated at the start of the week. The back nine featured a near hole-in-one at the 12th, a shot that reinforced just how dialed-in those irons are in this return.

A 65 needs more than just great iron play, and Tiger’s putter has not let him down this week either. He missed some chances on Thursday but left almost nothing out there in the second round. Tiger, who is shopping around for new equipment with Nike’s departure from the industry, is using the old Scott Cameron putter that’s delivered 13 of his 14 majors. It’s an iconic club that still showed plenty of magic and even provoked a patented Tiger fist pump after his most critical par save of the day. He poured in a bomb after an adventure on the 16th that looked like a big, ugly number when his drive went into a Palmetto bush in a waste area. The putter saved him.

The score will be the thing that gets the headlines. It’s the tangible and easily reportable measurement. But the thing that was so encouraging about what could come next was the strut. No one has ever posted low rounds in a way that makes you giddy watching the player in between the shots. We saw on Friday that Tiger still has plenty of that left.