Rory McIlroy holds off Tiger Woods’ dramatic Sunday charge at Bay Hill

At the Hero World Challenge at the end of 2017, Tiger Woods lamented the fact that his children had never really seen him play the game the way millions of others have over the years.

“I never thought my kids have understood what I’ve been able to do in the game of golf because they always think I’m the YouTube golfer,” he said last November. “They’ve never seen me in action.”

His daughter, Sam, was born in 2007 and his son, Charlie, was born in 2009. Tiger’s last real season on PGA Tour was 2013, when they were toddlers and perhaps still had not discovered even YouTube.

What Tiger gave us on Sunday at the Arnold Palmer Invitational was the YouTube stuff. He bombed drives, hit that salivating low stinger, striped his irons, stuffed his wedges, and rolled his putter like the most dominant, swagged out player in the world. The full game was there. The aggression was there. The joie de vivre was there.

It was an intoxicating show for 15 holes but unfortunately for Tiger, the round was 18 holes. He started the day five strokes off the lead and by the 15th hole, he stood over a makeable birdie putt to tie the lead. The ball burned the edge of the cup and he walked off one back of Rory McIlroy and Henrik Stenson at the time. No matter though, he had an easier par-5 ahead of him and a birdie, the one to tie the guys playing behind him, seemed likely.

Then it all came undone. Tiger’s miss with the driver during this comeback has been more often to the right. At the 16th, knowing he had to birdie and that was easily attainable, he got a little ahead of himself and yanked one way left over some temporary fencing into someone’s backyard. The ball was out of bounds and his chances for a miracle chasedown were all but gone. Woods never recovered, making bogey at that easy 16th and dropping another shot on the difficult 17th.

For about three and half hours, however, we got the vintage Tiger that we never thought we’d see again. Now we need just four hours and a full 18 holes. It seems close.

Woods knew he needed to post a low number to have a chance, so he picked his spots to get aggressive. He pulled driver at the 5th hole and smoked one. He took the most daring line we saw all day at the infamous 6th hole, and it resulted in the longest drive of the day from the best angle. A pured iron from that angle gave him eagle and had to put a scare in the leaders, who were just getting their rounds started.

An outward 34 gave Tiger a chance, but he’d need to step on the gas. He’d need to do better on the back nine if he wanted to have hope of forcing a playoff.

Tiger started the back nine with three birdies in his first four holes and that old sense of the inevitable started to creep in as you watched. That’s been gone since at least 2013, maybe even longer. But what seemed unlikely at the start of the day felt imminent as Tiger started cooking on the back nine. At the time, it didn’t matter that the rest of the leaderboard was loaded with top ranked players like McIlroy, Stenson, Justin Rose, and Bryson DeChambeau.

The birdie putt he poured in the back door at the 13th pulled him within one .

That would be his last red number of the day. He’d sputter out, losing it after he said he couldn’t commit to the driver at the 16th hole. It may not have mattered what he did on the final three holes, with the way McIlroy set Bay Hill on fire coming into the house with five birdies in his final six holes.

Tiger did not win on Sunday and he’s still without a victory since 2013. But we’re just five starts into this comeback and he’s competing in a way we haven’t seen in years. He’s strutting in a way we haven’t seen in years. What changed and stood out on Sunday compared to the other impressive rounds in this comeback was the aggression.

Tiger is contending, making Sunday charges, and igniting the crowds. The shotmaking is the stuff you figured you’d only ever see again on YouTube. But it was there again on Sunday and it will be there at the Masters in two weeks.

This is a Tiger-specific recap. We will go into great detail reacting and drooling over Rory’s incredible run Monday morning. What he did on Sunday is deserving of its own space and time. Here are your final results from Bay Hill: