5 Years After Crash, Tiger Woods is Still Recovering

The most famous marker in the gated community of Isleworth this week is covered by a sandwich board parking sign for Tiger Woods' tournament. A plant in a plastic pot, positioned in front of it, provides further camouflage. (Tiger Woods swings Rs. 250 crore deal)

The effort to hide the fire hydrant that a vehicle driven by Woods struck five years ago, setting off a gusher of revelations about his extramarital affairs, only serves to draw more attention to it. (Tiger Woods to test his back and new swing at Hero World Challenge)

Woods, 38, has won 14 majors, but none since 2008, which many see as one of the ripple effects from the accident in his driveway in the early hours after Thanksgiving night. In reality, a few variables are in play.

Since Woods won the 2008 U.S. Open in a playoff against Rocco Mediate, he has undergone two operations (knee and back); become a father for the second time; been divorced from the mother of his children; and reached the cusp of middle age. Injuries, fatherhood, divorce, advancing age: Any one might cause a precipitous drop-off in performance.

On Thursday, at the Hero World Challenge on his old home course, Isleworth Golf and Country Club, Woods will reboot his career for the second time since March.

Woods was asked which cards have had the biggest effect on his game since 2008. Without hesitation, he said it was age.

"Father Time is undefeated," Woods said Tuesday. "We all eventually are losing some of the things we are able to do when we were younger."

Since 2007, the last year he was injury- and pain-free, Woods' driving average has fallen from 302.4 yards to 294.9 yards. "I can't blow it out there with some of the longer guys anymore," he said.

His play on and around the greens has also come up short. Woods' struggles on the greens can be traced to his final-round 75 at the 2009 PGA Championship. He missed several putts inside 10 feet, considered his gimme range, on the way to losing his 54-hole lead and the tournament to Y.E. Yang.

Woods' play from inside 100 yards grew worse in proportion to his back pain, which makes sense. The time Woods normally devoted to his short game was spent resting or in physical therapy.

Steve Stricker, 47, is returning this week after being sidelined since mid-August with hip and back injuries. Speaking from experience, Stricker said he would consider injuries the biggest hurdle his friend Woods has had to overcome the past five years.

"When you're not feeling 100 percent, this game is impossible to play," Stricker said. "When you're injured it derails your preparation, and it knocks your confidence down a peg or two."

Woods won five times in 2013 while dealing with back spasms. In retrospect, he said, his success gave him an illusory sense of well-being. He thought he could manage the pain and continue to grind out victories with minimal practice.

After having to shut down his 2013-14 season twice, Woods is wiser. Like the basketball superstar who develops a fadeaway jumper to compensate for losing his explosive first step to the basket, he has accepted that he must adapt. And now, finally, after four months away from the game, Woods feels physically well enough to implement the necessary changes.

Woods recently hired Chris Como, 37, one of the game's top young instructors, to help him return his swing to the more fluid version from his amateur days.

"I had this plan in my head of where I wanted to go and what I want my swing to look like and what I want to get out of my body and out of my game," Woods said.

He added: "We went back to some of those old videos and really looked at it. And it was quite interesting to see where my swing was then and how much force I could generate with a very skinny frame."

How did that rail-thin kid generate so much power?

"That's kind of what we are getting back into," Woods said.

In Wednesday's pro-am, Woods was swinging more freely and driving the ball well. His big miss off the tee was a fairway bunker, an error he would gladly take any day as his worst.

Stricker, who was playing in the group behind Woods, said from where he stood, Woods' swing "looked like it was on a better path."

Several fans in his gallery commented on how Woods appeared to have lost weight. He does seem lighter, and not merely in ways a scale can measure.

On the driving range before he teed off, Woods interrupted his practice to banter with Billy Horschel and then Keegan Bradley. After he was done, Woods obliged a man who asked if he would pose for a photograph with his son.

He moved to the practice green, where he approached Patrick Reed. What ensued was an exchange punctuated by laughter. Several times during his round, Woods walked off the green and stopped to sign autographs before proceeding to the next tee box.

Hank Haney, who wrote "The Big Miss" about his years as Woods' swing instructor, noted that the longer Woods was at the top of the sport, the more isolated he became. This calendar year, Woods' ranking fell 23 places, to No. 24. If he is disappointed or dissatisfied, he hid it well this week as he described the down time he spent kicking a soccer ball in the backyard with his 7-year-old daughter, Sam Alexis, and 5-year-old son, Charlie Axel.

Woods lived in Isleworth, where he moved after turning pro, for 16 years before relocating to Palm Beach County. The people in the community, many of whom can recall seeing Woods buzz around the streets in his customized cart with spinner wheels and the TW logo, gave him a warm welcome-back Wednesday.

The outpouring of support did not surprise Woods' fellow pro John Cook, a longtime resident. Anybody who would question why Woods is holding his tournament, for this year only, at a place associated with one of his worst memories does not live inside its gates, Cook said.

"Everybody in here has had bad times," Cook said, adding," This is a true community."