Tiger Woods pulls off brilliant bunker shot that’s reminiscent of ‘Peak Tiger’

It will take an incredible Sunday charge or epic collapse for Tiger Woods to repeat the close call from last week in Tampa, where he had a putt on the 18th green to force a playoff. Woods is playing well this week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, but he walked off the course following his third round four shots off the lead.

Tiger estimated after the round that he would be five or six shots back by the end of the day and that Sunday, he’d need to “shoot a low one” and hope for some help. Bryson DeChambeau and Henrik Stenson have held steady in the lead at 11 or 12-under for most of the day. Woods’ 3-under 69 had him at 7-under after 54 holes.

Tiger could absolutely post something in the mid-60s Sunday afternoon to really make it interesting and have us in a frenzy for the second straight week. But the larger point remains: he’s back and hitting shots that have simply not been in his arsenal in at least five years.

The third round was the latest demonstration of this shotmaking ability. A capsule of the return of this shotmaking ability could be taken from the 16th hole. That’s a par-5, a relatively easy one, and a must-make birdie (or even eagle) if you want to contend and win at Bay Hill. Tiger’s drive, as has often been the case this week, was wild right and found a spot in the fairway bunker that seemed to prevent going for the green in two. There are only a handful of spots where going for the green in two is not a possibility, even for the medium-to-shorter hitter.

Tiger’s ball settled close to the lip of the bunker some 210 yards out, so he needed a lower trajectory to get home. But could he do that and also get over the lip? His first thought was to just pop it out into the fairway for a layup. Then he altered course, in a vintage Tiger way. He stepped back, threw some grass in the air, and decided to change his mind and give it a rip.

The result was an exhilarating approach. The ball just cleared the lip of the bunker, climbed over the trees, and fell pin-high in the back of the green.

For me, this is the shot of the comeback. Better than the hole-out chip shot in Tampa. The greatest shots of Tiger’s career have come from fairway bunkers. I immediately saw several people on Twitter compare this to that epic bunker shot at the Canadian Open. For me, I instantly thought of the 3-iron out of the sand at the PGA Championship at Hazeltine. It’s a shot Tiger has cited as the best in his career.

The circumstances were much different and the shot was a different play, but the execution out and over the lip made me think of a vintage Tiger pulling off all the shots that others don’t conceive. Or don’t have the self-belief to try.

The bunker shot led to a tap-in birdie. There were bogeys on the card, too, and he’s not played well enough to win. But after the round he said he had no real complaints. He finished up the round with a perfectly played 18th hole. There was another low bullet drive the exact same distance as he hit it on Friday — 323 yards. Then he stuck a sand wedge to a makeable distance and pulled it off to a subtle downward fist pump.

There were several other highlights from the round, but that bunker shot at the 16th is the one that will stick with me. The shot last week that will stick with me was the missile 283 yards uphill at the 5th at Innisbrook that he got to land pin-high as well. Whether it’s from fairway bunkers or pure power, Tiger is putting on a shotmaking display we haven’t seen in years.

It’s unlikely he wins on Sunday night. That’s always the object but not necessarily the point of these Florida swing starts. It’s getting back to posting scores and playing competitively on the PGA Tour. It’s getting back to making the shots that once made him an overwhelming force. The comeback to competitiveness has been startlingly fast. Now he’s sharpening it up with the Masters just two weeks away.