Tiger Woods ready for comebback

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/04/sports/golf/04golf.html?ref=sports

SAN DIEGO — Tiger Woods wanted to know how Torrey Pines Golf Course looked, what the weather was doing and what else was going on at the site where, six months ago, he put on a paranormal display in the United States Open — the likes of which had not been seen before and most likely will not be seen again.

“How’s the course out there?” Woods asked during a telephone interview Tuesday from Orlando, Fla. “It’s going to rain, huh? It’ll be cold, damp and long.”

The PGA Tour is back at Torrey Pines this week with the Buick Invitational. Woods is still absent from the game, and the forecast of rain and cold during Thursday’s first round could be considered appropriate. Cold, damp and long or warm, hard and fast, Woods has won under all conditions at Torrey.

Woods, the No. 1-ranked player in the world, has been out since he had surgery after his United States Open playoff victory over Rocco Mediate in June, in which he played 91 holes with a torn anterior cruciate left knee ligament and two stress fractures in his left tibia. The tour has suffered in his absence, with depressed television ratings and lower turnout at tournaments.

At home in Orlando, where he is still rehabilitating his knee, Woods has been diligently preparing for the time that his body and his doctors tell him he can return to competitive golf.

“It’s just a matter of getting up the reps and getting the ball count a little higher and recovering on a daily basis,” Woods said. “That’s the trick when you’re coming back from major surgery is not to push it so much that you can’t recover the next day.

“I don’t know when I’ll be back. A lot depends on the baby. Our family situation is more important than anything I’m doing golfwise. That will take precedence over anything golfwise.”

Woods’s family situation is that his wife, Elin, will soon deliver the couple’s second child. Since they announced Elin’s pregnancy early last September, the only due date given has been late winter. Woods hinted on Tuesday that, despite a prediction of six more weeks of winter by the groundhog Punxsutawney Phil on Monday, late winter may be coming a bit earlier than that.

“The time flies,” Woods said. “You know, it’s six months away, then a few months away and next thing you know it’s almost here.”

Woods has been busy in the past few months. He was a featured speaker at President Obama’s pre-inaugural celebration at the Lincoln Memorial on Jan. 18, giving an emotional speech about the sacrifices made by members of the United States military that was inspired, in part, by the service of his father, Earl, a former Green Beret.

And while juggling his rehabilitation, managing site visits to golf course building projects under way in North Carolina and Mexico, playing daily with his daughter, Sam, and hitting as many golf balls as he can, Woods also has stayed busy overseeing the release of his EA Sports Tiger Woods PGA Tour ’09 game.

On Tuesday he was at the Gillette-EA Sports Champions of Gaming Finals in Orlando, preparing to take on the best of 350,000 entrants narrowed down to the winner of a three-man playoff.

“These guys are phenomenal,” Woods said, laughing when asked if he could compete with any of the three finalists on equal virtual-reality footing. “They practice probably more hours a day on my game than I do on my real game. It will be fun to see if I can keep up, which I know I probably won’t be able to.”

Woods will play the finalist on the virtual 16th , 17th and 18th holes at the T.P.C. Sawgrass, which, in reality, are among the most demanding finishing holes on the PGA Tour. He does not expect to win.

“If he does beat me, and he probably will, we’ll just go double or nothing on a real golf course,” Woods said.

When Woods will step back into competition on a real golf course at a real PGA Tour event will be learned within the next two months. Most signs point to some time during the Florida swing, which begins in early March. Whenever it is, he will be stepping into a new situation because he has never been away so long.

“I’ve never done anything like this before,” he said. “I really am looking forward to seeing how fast I can get into the competitive flow of a round. That’s the main thing — how long before things start to feel like they’re flowing in the round versus just hitting shot for shot? Getting into a rhythm, a flow, that’s what I’m looking forward to most.”