Is Tiger Woods back? For one round he certainly was

Whisper it: this was vintage Tiger Woods.

Granted it was a Friday afternoon at the 18-man field Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas – his very own tournament – and, due to Justin Rose’s withdrawal, Woods was playing on his own, but there’s no doubt that this was a throwback.

A throwback in the form of a bogey-free 65, that is.

After a blistering front nine on Thursday was let down by a sloppy 40 shots on the back nine, Woods maintained good golf for the full two hours and 54 minutes of his lonesome second round in the billionaire’s paradise of Albany.

His third round certainly won’t be so lonesome however as he finished the day tied for ninth on six under par, six shots behind leaders Dustin Johnson and Hideki Matsuyama.

Returning after two back operations to play competitive golf for the first time since August 2015, the 14-time major winner looked as comfortable and at ease on the golf course as he has ever done.

There were club twirls, there were fist pumps and, most importantly, there were birdies.

Seven of them in total. The first came at the opening hole and from there he kicked on.

Taking full advantage of two of the three par fives on the front nine Woods birdied the sixth and the ninth to get to three under for the day and begin to creep up the leaderboard.

However, it was with trepidation that he moved into the homeward stretch after what happened yesterday.

But that trepidation seemed to stem only through the rather small gallery following him – in the Bahamas people have better things to be doing than watching the world number 898 play golf – as Woods parred the 10th before picking up another shot at the par five 11th.

“Yesterday I had it going for three holes (he hit three successive birdies on the sixth, seventh and eighth) and I lost it and finished over par,” Woods told Sky Sports.

“Today was different — I turned those two par fives (the ninth and the 11th, both of which he bogeyed on Thursday) into under-par and consequently I was able to play the middle part of the round better.

“I kept the momentum going and moved myself up the board.”

Keep the momentum going he did, and particularly so in his impressive iron play.

That was shown yet again as he gently faded a sumptuous seven iron in to kick-in distance at the par three 12th to move to five under for his round.

But he wasn’t finished there.

Birdies at the 14th and 15th began to conjure up possibilites of something really special in the realms of 62.

But perhaps it was the 16th that will stand out most. After driving right into the waste area Woods found his ball lodged up against a small bush. Only managing to hack it further up the sandy area he was left with a long third shot into the par four.

After leaving it 25 feet away it appeared he would be succumbing to his first bogey of the day. But this was vintage Tiger, remember?

His putt tracked beautifully from right-to-left before catching the edge of the hole and dropping for a brilliant par. It was followed by a trademark fist pump and, for a moment, Tiger was back.

Time will tell if that’s truly the case but for one Friday afternoon off the coast of Miami it was like the greatest golfer ever to play the game had never gone away.