Tiger Woods makes first appearance since father's death

Tiger Woods has made his return to the PGA schedule this weekend, following an extended break during which he was learning to cope with the recent loss of his father. Over the past two months, Woods only played two U.S. Open practice rounds on Thursday, June 15th and Friday, June 16th before realizing he wasn’t ready to return, and taking the weekend off at Winged Foot.

Tiger had a slow warm up round on Thursday at Cog Hill with a 1-over 72 before his return began with a 67 on Friday that included a stretch of holes in which he birdied 5 of 7.

Again, Tiger has proven his mental superiority over everyone who has ever played the game. When Tiger got married, people questioned whether or not he could remain so diligently committed. He did.

Then Tiger changed his swing, and the cries of “SLUMP” could be heard morning and night; he didn’t listen, and won the Masters and British Open in 2005.

Most recently, Tiger’s father died, he wasn’t ready to play in the U.S. Open, and the whispers and questions could be heard again: Will Tiger recover? When will he be ready to play again? We can’t actually pull for Vijay Singh to challenge Mickelson, can we?

But each time, those who have doubted or criticized have been dead wrong. Tiger just cares more than everyone else (if you disagree, go look at his expression while he was slipping the green jacket on Mickelson), and all it takes is a little wake up call to get him moving again. Obviously after the Open he was still focused on the loss of his father, and that was hurting him exponentially more than his early departure from a golf tournament, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t able to experience the sheer anger that world-class competitors go through when they get the occasional beat-down, whether it is at the hands of an opponent, a golf course, or life in general.

So Tiger is back, and let’s face the fact that nothing short of death or prison will keep him from being the best in the world for the next decade.