Tiger Woods' comeback has an unexpected hurdle - he's on the wrong side of an important generational gap
There's plenty to watch for during his first round: the mechanics of his swing, his fitness (both physical and mental), his short game, and - perhaps most interestingly - how he handles his new clubs.
On Tuesday, in the lead-up to the tournament, Woods said during his time away from golf the technology surrounding golf clubs has improved so quickly that there is now a huge generational gap in the sport's equipment and he now finds himself playing equipment catch-up.
In August, Nike Golf announced that they were stopping production of hardware, meaning Woods had to go about putting together a whole new bag. This move has been complicated by an accelerated change in technology since Woods has been away.
Woods grew up playing with steel irons and glued hosels (driver heads). Meanwhile, the newest and best irons are all graphite, and driver and wood heads come equipped with dials that make them adjustable to account for variables like loft, carry, spin, fade, and draw.
Given these and other advancements, Woods has been forced to re-learn a huge part of the game of golf.
"I'm still learning this whole new adjustability of clubs," Woods told the Golf Channel on Tuesday. "I mean, I've played glued hosels all my life. I played and beat Davis [Love III] in a playoff in '96 when he had a persimmon driver [i.e. woods made of actual wood]. I went through all that era in the glued, now nothing is glued. Everything is adjustable. That's a very different concept to me."
Woods noted that even when Nike did roll out some of the new, adjustable technology, he held firm to the old-school, glued driver heads. Now he's trying to adapt to the new advancements.
"Even when Nike came out with their adjustable hosels I still used glue hosels," Woods said in a press conference later on Tuesday. "And so the whole fitting system of glued versus adjustable, and the weight distribution in the hosels is just different. It's a different feel."
"Take spin off, add spin," he added. "I'm used to using rat glue to adjust spin. Ball flight. Hell, I don't know how many guys in here probably understand how to whip an old persimmon, how to take loft off of it, how to add loft. Roll and bulge. These are things that are not common anymore, and so I'm trying to learn the new terminology."
He continued:
"And so having to learn this whole new concept is eye-opening because there are so many ways to do it. When I was with Nike, they may send you 30 or 40 clubs and you just hit 'em. Now, maybe, they send you one or two heads and you just adjust it and adjust it. On top of that, most of my career I've played steel. Now, there's thousands and thousands of graphite companies out there that respond better than steel. So that's a different change. Technology has really changed a lot."
Woods noted that he spoke with Jack Nicklaus and other older golfers, who played during a time when advancements in equipment didn't change for decades.
"I've talked to Jack and some of the older players who grew up in an era where there was no advancement. It was a persimmon club and a balata ball. That was it. There was no testing. All you had to do was go on the range, you had your caddy on the range, and you tried to find a round golf ball and you set that aside for tournament play. So they played with the same equipment for close to two, three, four different decades. Now, everything changes in six to nine months."
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Woods must feel like an old geezer watching the way the young professional golfers tinker. Consider Bryson Dechambeau, who studied physics at SMU and developed customized clubs that complement his single-plane swing. Before last year's Masters, Jordan Spieth cracked his driver and was forced to replace it. It turned out to be no big deal - he went to the range with a dozen different shaft and hosel options, and quickly found the one that worked for him.
More than just how quickly golf technology is improving, what Woods' answer reveals is how big the generation gap is right now in golf. And because he is on the wrong side of it, it seems hard to imagine Woods really competing - even if he's healthy.
"There's a different turnover. And it is eye-opening at how much - I just saw the guys out here yesterday, a couple of the guys out here [on the range] yesterday had probably 15 drivers, had 12 different 3-woods. They're cranking this, cranking that, adjusting this, looking on Trackman, looking at the numbers. It's a different ballgame."
What he does have going for him, it seems, is his experience. New golf technology is better, obviously, so that Woods was able to control so many different variables the old way should help him with his better clubs.
"[I'm] trying to implement some of my old feels and some of the things that has made me successful at the same time throughout the years," he said in his presser. "Hopefully I can have some kind of amalgamation of all that together and put together a nice little run here."
This weekend, Woods has said he will use a Taylor Made driver and woods to go with a Bridgestone ball. During his press conference on Tuesday, he noted that he would keep tweaking his clubs going forward.
When he tees off on Thursday, he will do so as the 898th-ranked golfer in the world. Every other golfer competing is ranked in the top 40. His fitness - both physical and mental - will be worth keeping an eye on when he plays, as will his swing.
His clubs may not be perfect for a while, but then, neither will his game.
Watch Tiger talk about his equipment below (courtesy of the Golf Channel):