Unbending

Officially now, he says he's in.

He says he thinks he can win.

If you're surprised by either of those, you haven't been paying attention for the last two decades and change.

A little over a year after crushing his right leg in a car crash ... a month or so longer than that since his last back surgery ... Tiger Woods will play serious golf again. At Augusta. In the Masters. And of course he sees no reason why he can't win himself another green jacket.

He wouldn't be Tiger Woods if he didn't think so, even if more rational people don't see any way. He hasn't played in a major in a year-and-a-half. He's got a bunch of metal holding his injured leg together. And he's 46 years old -- a very old 46, given all the injuries and surgeries that have dogged him the last 14 or so years.

The man ought to be pulling a cane out of his bag, not his driver.

The man would likely take the cane away and beat you with it if you said that within earshot of him.

In his prime he used to send other golfers into cringe mode with his unbending will, and now he turns that will on the ravages of age and circumstance. Mortality is not as likely to blink, but Woods will try to make it anyway. Going gently is not his way.

That's why he'll be on the first tee tomorrow, and what happens after that will be what happens after that. Maybe he'll play a round or two and the leg will give out. Maybe he'll make the cut. Maybe he'll be right there  on Saturday -- moving day -- and, in spite themselves, everyone will be looking over their shoulders on Sunday at the man with the shattered leg.

I'm saying that will happen. I don't think it will, or even can.

But I'm not dropping a roll of twenties against it. A fool and his money, you know.