Tiger Woods shows up at a clinic, starts ripping drives and leaves the crowd in awe

We’ve heard and seen the reports in recent weeks: Tiger Woods was taking full swings again, putting in longer practice sessions and might just be closer to a return “a lot sooner than most of us expected.”

Now there’s video to support these rumblings. Woods showed up at Sage Valley, site of a junior invitational event, on Thursday afternoon to give a clinic. Some reporters on scene said they weren’t supposed to take photos but that didn’t stop the crowd from catching the Big Cat in action. Here he is carrying driver 300 YARDS, according to a Golfweek account.

One person in the crowd even screamed “Mashed Potatoes!” as Tiger bombed one, giving him that real tournament feel, hitting again in full public view of the idiot masses.

Full-speed rips with the driver are probably the clearest indicator that there are no restrictions on what he can do with his swing right now. But just to reinforce things, he started blasting 2-iron stingers -- The Stinger! In the wild again! And on video!

He went further, too, getting a little saucy and adding a pretty little club twirl afterwards. The “Oh my god!” reaction from one crowd member here is how we’re all feeling.

The entire crowd seemed in awe, incredulous -- a true clinic indeed.

Without swinging a club or saying anything, Tiger had dominated most of the day already, as everyone took in Wright Thompson’s incredible reporting and feature on the “The Secret History of Tiger Woods.” But here he was, making actual swings, ripping stringers, booming drives, strutting for the crowd, dropping the Pythagorean theorem on Notah. As trivial as it is, this was still the most golf we’d seen from him since last August, and an optimistic sign that the greatest singular force in the history of the game may be back soon.

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