Long, hard road back for Tiger Woods

The road to redemption is hard and unyielding, riddled with potholes and good intentions, a forced-march slog through a wasteland, with only a flickering promise of salvation.

Eldrick has been traveling that road for two years now, leaning into the wind, resisting and persisting, remaking his swing, remaking his life, seeking forgiveness, or if that's an unreasonable expectation, maybe a smile and a nod.

Wasn't it just yesterday he was Tiger - no last name needed - the child prodigy who drove golf balls off the ends of the earth and snaked in 80-foot putts and finessed his way out of all sorts of trouble? Well, at least the trouble he encountered on the golf course.

What we have now is the child prodigy inching toward middle age, Tiger Woods closing in - can it be? - on the Big Four-oh-oh-oh-oh, and in the process living some remarkable similarities to the plight of your typical modern man. For example:

Running short of birthday cake candles? Check, need 36 of them next month.

Divorced? And how.

Shared children? Sadly, yes.

Body beginning to betray you? Uh-huh. Four knee surgeries, plus stints with canes, crutches, and walking boots.

Problems in the workplace? 'Fraid so. Haven't sealed a major deal since June of '08.

Now, he picks his way through the wreckage while the rest of us ponder how far, exactly, is his fall from grace.

This is the shocker: Tiger Woods is 51st in the world rankings.

Can't be. From 1 to 51? What, the parachute didn't deploy, and the emergency one is a mess of snarled tangles?

You keep thinking that any minute now he will morph back into Tiger, the Tiger before whom the rest of the field would genuflect, and he would whisper to himself, à la Larry Bird and the three-point competition: "Which one of you SOBs is playing for second?"

He has his believers still, none more staunch than Fred Couples, who staked his reputation and judgment on Tiger by making him one of two captain's picks for last week's President's Cup, a poor

's version of the Ryder Cup. Not only did Couples defy public and popular opinion, he announced his selection a full month before it was required, just in case you doubted how he felt about Tiger.

"He's still Tiger Woods," Couples said. "He's still a presence."

Early on last week at Melbourne, he was anything but a presence, losing his first two competitions. But Couples remained resolute, and Tiger vindicated him on the very last day with a runaway triumph in his final match that clinched the championship, and for the first time in a long, long, torturous time, Tiger Woods got to hold a trophy. He hadn't forgotten how. Overlapping grip, right?

And afterward he credited much of his success to Steve Stricker, who is considered by many to know just about everything there is to know about the maddening, humbling, % &*#* craft of putting.

"Whatever he says about putting, I'm going to do," Woods said.

Now there was a revelation. Tiger Woods actually listening to pointers? Listening to an opponent, yet? The Tiger who all-but-invented-the game-so-get-the-hell-out-of-my-way? The same Tiger who would wrap himself in a cocoon of concentration, stride the fairways oblivious to the world, delivering violent wind-milling uppercuts after extricating himself from seemingly impossible lies, bullying the field, playing with their minds, the same Tiger who never tarried for small talk, who went from course to motel, eyes straight ahead, who never, ever, let anyone in - that Tiger?

One and the same.

Redemption Road, it turns out, can be a humbling odyssey. Tiger Woods is no longer automatically the longest off the tee in his threesome. Sometimes not second. A new generation has grown up, respectful enough but no longer awed, twentysomethings who crush the ball and come from faraway lands - of the record 20 players who finished under par at the U.S. Open, only nine hailed from the United States. The game is changing, and no longer can Tiger Woods throw his glove on the green and watch them scatter.

He conceded, a bit wistfully: "They're long, they're good."

Yes, yes they are, but do you know any of them? Do you care? Without Tiger, the marquee is missing its brightest light, attendance shrivels, TV ratings wither. No one is more encouraging than his opposition because, hey, he adds zeroes to our paychecks.

The fallout from his scandal appears to be subsiding. Galleries, for the most part, are supportive and encouraging, light on the taunting. The corporate world is showing the first sign of its forgiveness with two Tiger-endorsed commercials.

He is cast now, perhaps on purpose, as the resolute underdog. It is a persona that seems to resonate with the public - or do you remember Bill Clinton?

Tiger Woods began his clinching final round at the President's Cup with birdies on five of the first 11 holes and cruised home looking like that belligerent killer of the sweet-used-to-be.

Couples said: "I heard he played like the Tiger of old today. I think he showed himself that his swing is back and he's healthy."

The game of golf hopes so.

Bill Lyon's column will appear Sundays in

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