Tiger Woods makes his long-awaited return to competitive golf at the 2023 Hero World Challenge tournament he hosts in the Bahamas this week.

It has been a prolonged absence since his embarrassing 13-over par in the 2023 Masters at Augusta – his last tournament – and no expectation that Woods would, or should, return.

The announcement of his return to competitive golf this week at the Hero World Challenge still excites most of us who still long for one more glimpse of his greatness, however diminished he may be.

Closing one millennium with a game of golf we never thought possible and setting the standard for the next one, no one has even come close to approaching his accomplishments.

We remember all of the majors (15 of them) but sometimes forget that Woods was player of the year 11 times (five in a row from 1999-2004).

Jack Nicklaus is the closest, with a total of five.

Woods won nine tournaments in 1999, eight tournaments three times, seven tournaments once, six in a row, five tournaments twice, and four tournaments three times.

Today, a player winning more than one event a year is a big deal. And all of this was despite countless surgeries and personal dramas.

Most prognosticators and oddsmakers don’t anticipate Tiger Woods winning this week or even contending in the Bahamas in the 2023 Hero World Challenge.

But we’ll still get to see that flawless golf swing of power and grace, and I’m sure he’ll provide great moments and incredible shots that evoke the past, just not as many.

Maybe he’ll surprise us, still, with an astonishing comeback at Albany Golf Club, which, if we’re honest with ourselves, we still believe, deep down, he has one more in him.

We’ll probably believe that until he ends up like Bobby Jones, an apparition, confined to a wheelchair on a Sunday at Augusta wearing a green jacket and, perhaps, watching his son Charlie slip on the coveted cloak to commemorate him.