Opinion | Tiger Woods at peace ahead of PNC Championship, but don’t bet against him roaring again in 2022

As turning 46 looms, Tiger Woods says he is at peace with himself.

While he knows he isn’t the same athlete he once was, it would be wrong to assume he has accepted his fate of not being able to match Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 major victories or secure the historic 83rd PGA Tour triumph he so craves.

This new-found inner peace could also mean Woods is happy at just being a father to his kids, Charlie and Sam, instead of throwing himself through the painful recovery to overcome his latest fight with injuries sustained in a horrific single-vehicle accident in February, which nearly cost him his right leg, if not his life.

Since bursting onto the scene by emerging as the youngest Masters champion in 1997, Woods has transcended the sport like no other. He was athletic, he could miraculously coax a golf ball into the hole, and he had swagger and aura that only a selected few exudes.

More importantly, Woods changed the face of golf through his multicultural family background, coining the term “Cablinasion’ to describe his African-American and Thai-Asian heritage and simply made golf cool, paving the way for it to grow across the globe.

Aside from Vijay Singh, he also transformed how a new generation of golfers prepared themselves for the daily grind of being on the PGA Tour. While the raw power and athleticism he generated thrilled his army of fans, it came with a hefty price with five surgeries on his left knee and another five on his back. Still, Tiger has shown he has more than the proverbial nine lives by mounting comeback after comeback to cement his stature as a global sports icon.

Following spinal fusion on his back in 2017 to alleviate debilitating pain, his detractors predicted Woods’ career was done, but after months of recuperation and intense preparation, he was on the prowl once more and ended up winning the FedExCup Playoffs Finale, the Tour Championship in 2018.