Tiger Woods gave us theatre of a lifetime at The Open, even in defeat

Consider for a moment how far we’ve come. Just one year ago this month, Tiger Woods stood stiff, coming out of hibernation to make a sponsor-encouraged appearance at his own Quicken Loans National in DC. His goals were simple after coming off yet another back surgery, and only a handful of weeks removed from a painkiller-induced DUI that would be eventually dismissed. He wanted to be able to play with his kids. He wanted to live life without back pain. There was no particular talk of chasing Jack, or winning majors, or if we’d ever see Tiger play competitive golf ever again.

Tiger Woods didn’t win this Open Championship, but there’s no other way to calibrate his return than as a massive, massive success after coming up just short at Carnoustie this week. Starting the day four shots back with still something of only an outside chance, Tiger, adorned in his famous sunday red, chased down Jordan Spieth and two other proven, solid players in Kevin Kisner and Xander Schauffele in just nine holes to take a solo lead, on Sunday, at a major championship, on the back nine. I’m not particularly sure golf will ever get better for the forseeable future than it was at this very moment, about halfway through today’s round.

At that moment, it all seemed possible. It seemed like once again, we were living in 2005 — with younger players living what the Vijays and Phils and David Tomses and David Duvals lived for years. Top players wilting as the game’s most iconic figure charged. For a half second, it even looked like he might run away with things. Tough conditions put a cap on scoring early, and no one behind Tiger made any sort of a material move from behind him.

He got help from above him, too. The trio of overnight leaders came back to the field quickly to open things up at the start of the round. Kevin Kisner made an early double to fall back from the pack, while Spieth and Schauffele made a complete mess of the normally scoreable stretch from Hole 5 to 7 at Carnoustie. That left the door wide open for Tiger to vault to the top.

He took advantage. This birdie at the 4th got him to 6-under for the tournament, and another at the 6th got him to 7-under.

With Schauffele and Spieth’s struggles, that was enough for Tiger Woods to hold the outright lead heading to his back nine. Even in defeat, that’ll be a moment to look back, appreciate, and remember forever. The next months and years will provide the context for what it’s representative of, but it’ll either be a flashback of nostalgia for a decade of dominance — or the true moment we knew Tiger was back — and capable of winning majors, plural, once again. Right now, it seems more of the latter than the former.

The turn is where things began to get hairy. Tiger, who let the field in driving accuracy (!!!) through 63 holes, began to get wayward off the tee. He salvaged a drive into the bunker on 10 with ABSOLUTE VINTAGE RECOIL MAGIC. Then came the 11th. A slightly offline 3-iron went into the long grasses and gave way to a shortsided miss into the green. At that point, Woods held the lead solo and could’ve taken bogey to just fall back into a tie at the top.

Instead, he opted for magic — just nearly missing his landing area on a pitch, coming up short of a ridge, and having to play his fourth from aside the bunker. He’d putt up from there, but miss his bogey putt to give two shots back. Another bogey at the 12th left him two behind of a massive crew at 6-under-par, and seemingly almost dead — going from atop alone to well-behind in a blink of the eye.

But he wasn’t. A birdie at the 14th and a lack of moves around him gave him an opportunity. He came to the 18th tee needing a birdie and a Francesco Molinari bogey to post the clubhouse lead with others struggling behind him. Undeterred by a patron shouting at the top of his backswing, he ripped driver right down the middle and stiffed his approach giving everyone one last flame of hope. Then Molinari put his ball inside Tiger’s, Tiger booted his putt (which may cost him a final invite to Firestone), and Frank sank his for the eventual win.

Maybe this is the start of Tiger’s second wave. There’s no question after today that Tiger can still win a major championships. He’s going to win tournaments again, and it’d be a strong bet to assume he would in the next eight days if the OWGR is kind enough to get him into the Top 60 and for an invite to the final event ever at Firestone — where he’s won eight times over his career. Perhaps I’m riding high, and my brain is poisoned by the outright, unmitigated fun that today was, but you could sell me that Jack’s mark of 18 majors might just be in play once again.

Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe this is a short term flash, at an event that often does tend to favor older players. Hell, Tom Watson turned the clock back here and nearly missed a title at 59 in 2009. That didn’t make him a contender on Tour once again.

Maybe Tiger gets hurt again, maybe we never see the win. But all we’ve asked for the past few years is to watch the game’s biggest icon battle with the game’s new, uber-talented young guard. We’d never really seen peak Rory, peak Spieth, and peak Tiger — the unquestioned three biggest names in the sport — battle it out for a major title. And even though none of the trio took home the Jug, we got that.

Sport for fans, or hell, for anyone there to bear witness, is not calibrated in the mind only by the result. There’s no magic potion that will erase today’s experience or memory from your cortex because Frank Molinari — the best dang player in the world at the moment — turned in a steely performance for the ages to rob of us Tiger’s 15th major.

We deal too much in absolutes in sport, only quantifying successes and fulfillment in wins and losses. Tomorrow is sure to produce some Tiger Doesn’t Have It Any More take from one of the Monday morning talking heads because he didn’t seal the deal. Ignore that. Golf is hard, and the numbers are overwhelmingly against any one person winning a material number of major championships. Tiger has 14 of them.

Maybe there will be more in the future. Maybe this sets the table for a dominant, thrilling performance at the PGA in a few week, where this near miss will only make the victory sweeter. Maybe there won’t be another run at major contention. I don’t know.

But for all the years of begging, hoping — for Tiger, and Rory, and Jordan — all together on a leaderboard, we got it. And that’s reason for this to be a Sunday to remember.