Dec 28, 2018

  • Bob HarigESPN Senior Writer

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    • Senior golf game writer for ESPN.com
    • Covered golf for more than than xx years
    • Earned Evans Scholarship to attend Indiana University

Editor'south notation: This piece was originally published Dec. 28.

Birthdays accept not served equally nifty benchmarks of late for Tiger Woods, especially as he passed into that "twilight'' area of his career where the days abound shorter and the opportunities more fleeting.

Athletes in their 40s already face long odds of success, and Woods' plight has been fabricated all the more onerous due to four dorsum surgeries, the most contempo of which occurred when he was 41 and already facing an uncertain future.

But after Forest celebrated his 43rd birthday on December. 30, and is set to brainstorm his 2019 season this calendar week at the Farmers Insurance Open up, prospects have not looked this brilliant in years. Woods is ranked 13th in the world -- he was 13th, likewise, after winning the Tour Championship in September for his 80th career PGA Tour victory.

With a stiff performance or two early on in the new year's day, it's not unreasonable to recall that Forest could be back among the elevation 10 in the world for the kickoff time since he dropped out more than four years ago.

And the take chances to go to No. ane?

It's possible, if perchance not probable.

"If he could go far back to No. 1 in the world, that would exist an incredible achievement,'' said Hank Haney, Wood' autobus from 2004 to 2010 -- a period that never saw Woods fall below third.

"I call back [Jack] Nicklaus' tape [of 18 majors] is the ultimate, but so far out there [Wood has 14]. Just I recall No. 1 is there to be had. He has a relatively easy path. He doesn't accept all these points [that he tin potentially lose] that all these guys take. So it's easier to climb in the rankings.''

Easier. Just not easy.

Wood' rise was swift in 2018 because he started from so far back. He demand just look at Jason Day to see how tough a task information technology is to climb to the top when y'all are so close.

The Australian who spent considerable time at No. 1 in 2015-16 started the twelvemonth ranked 13th. He won twice -- once more than Woods -- and finished at No. 14th. Then Woods needs a year better than 2018, which was deemed wildly successful.

Brooks Koepka, who ended 2019 as the No. one-ranked player in the earth later a flavor in which he won two major championships as well as another PGA Tour event, has traded the top spot with Justin Rose four times in recent months.

Forest holds records for the most sequent weeks (281) and full weeks (683) at No. ane just has not been there since March 2014, following the WGC-Cadillac Championship at Doral, his terminal tournament earlier the beginning of four back surgeries.

From that point, information technology was a losing battle for Woods to get and stay healthy, equally he gradually fell down the rankings list. He was 32nd at the end of 2014; and later on playing 11 times in 2015 and having 2 more than back surgeries, he was 416th at the end of the year equally he was turning twoscore.

The slide continued as Wood played no official events in 2016, had a three-tournament comeback late in the twelvemonth and into 2017, dropping all the way to ane,199th.

A necktie for ninth concluding December at the Hero World Challenge boosted Woods back into the meridian 1,000 and he was 656th when he began 2018, becoming the histrion now ranked amidst the top 100 in the world who made the biggest leap.

"The expectations are much unlike this upcoming yr,'' Woods said. "Now I know that I can do it, now it's merely about managing and making sure I'm fresh for events considering I know I can win tournaments over again.''

Tin can he go to No. 1 once again?

Woods has typically maintained that the ranking takes care of itself. Win enough, fence enough, end high enough, and getting at that place will happen.

And so while it is certainly possible for Woods to again be atop the rankings, it will take some work. Certainly more success than he had in 2018, when he won once, twice finished second, including a major championship, and posted a total of seven top-10 finishes.

He cracked the height 100 for the first time afterward the Masters, and got to No. l when he tied for sixth at The Open. His necktie for second at the PGA Championship got him to 26th and the win got him in the top 20.

Every bit impressive and unexpected every bit all that was, Forest was as well doing it with a virtual clean slate in regard to the Official World Golf Ranking, which operates on a ii-twelvemonth rolling period, with most weight given to the most recent 13 weeks.

That means, nevertheless, that over time a player sees his points reduced in increments. Because Woods had rarely played over the previous 2 years, he was mostly just adding -- non losing -- points.

As 2019 unfolds, he will encounter the impact of that in his rankings. He can plainly earn more than points than he loses past continuing to play well, but he is more probable to drop spots if his play does not keep upwardly.

"He doesn't have to get back to where he was,'' Haney said, referring to the level that Forest played at when he was No. 1, most recently in 2013. "He has to get back to the level that Phil Mickelson was at while Tiger was dominating. That level alone would put him right there or near No. i, and I think Tiger can exercise that.

"After watching him [in 2018], I remember he can do that.''

It is almost impossible to quantify exactly what Woods needs to do to go back on pinnacle. Evidently rattling off a five-victory season -- which included the Players Title and two World Golf Title titles -- as he did in 2013 could exercise it.

He probably needs some kind of combination of four victories in regular tournaments or perhaps a major or WGC win (where more world ranking points are offered) and a handful of top-10s.

If y'all want a more technical answer and are well-versed in the workings of the OWGR, hither is one way to look at information technology, co-ordinate to Ian Barker, manager of data services for the European Tour, which helps administer the ranking system.

Barker explained that Woods volition have a minimum of 174 earth ranking points as of April xiv, 2018 -- the Lord's day of the Masters. He is at 219 now. And his tournament divisor will stay at a minimum of forty. (Players who play fewer than forty times in a two-year flow are given the minimum.)

"I gauge an average points figure of eleven.00 at that fourth dimension would be enough to be No. 1,'' Barker said. (Koepka is at 9.9155 average points right now.) "To achieve that boilerplate on that date, Tiger'southward full points would need to be 440. So if he wins 226 OWGR points betwixt now so, he'll probably be back to No. one.''

How would he do that? Well, past winning oft. Every bit Barker points out, that probably would require 3 big wins at tournaments such every bit WGC-Mexico (probably 72 points to the winner), Arnold Palmer (60), the Players Championship (80), the WGC-Dell Match Play (74) and the Masters (100) would all offering those opportunities.

Here'southward another style to look at it:

Following the 2011 flavor -- when Forest had sunk as low every bit 58th -- he finished at No. 23 following a victory at the Hero World Challenge to finish the twelvemonth. In 2012, he played 22 worldwide events, with three victories, two missed cuts and a withdrawal and nine other top-10s.

That helped him get as high as No. 2 and he finished the year at No. 3. And then he got to No. 1 once again in 2013 subsequently winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational -- his third victory of the year -- and stayed there through the WGC-Cadillac Invitational in 2014.

Forest' back problems led to surgery, a hasty comeback and more often than not poor play for the remainder of 2014 and 2015 -- when he posted a single top ten, in his last result, and missed the cutting in three majors.

When he tied for 10th at the 2015 Wyndham Championship, Woods was 257th in the world and continued to keep dropping until his about contempo comeback.

Put in perspective, it is remarkable he has come up this far.

Can he go all the way back? Well, Koepka, Justin Rose, Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas -- to name four who all held the No. 1 spot in 2018 -- as well as the likes of Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, Rickie Fowler, Hashemite kingdom of jordan Spieth and Day might all have something to say about it.

At this fourth dimension last yr, Spieth was second and has dropped to 16th, so it can go the other way. Then again, Bubba Watson began the year at 89th, won three times, and is now at 17th -- which is however iv spots below Woods.

The bottom line is this: Woods tin become to No. 1, simply he's going to probably need at least three victories and a slew of high finishes.

That might be a lot to inquire -- and would obviously position him well for 2020 -- only merely getting back to the top twenty and existence part of the give-and-take going into 2019 is impressive.

"I know that I tin can win because I merely proved it,'' Woods said. "It's just a matter of getting everything peaking at the right time.''