Tiger Woods is what golf needs to help itself heal. He made the Masters cut. Can he win?

AUGUSTA, Ga. — This week, not even an act of God could keep Tiger from making the cut at the Masters.

A sustained, 30-mile per hour gust created a mini-sandstorm as Tiger Woods stood over his par putt at the 18th hole. His playing partners, Max Homa and Jason Day, turned away. Patrons closed their mouths and shut their eyes.

“On 18, we had sandblasts for 45 seconds, and I turned around five times so I didn’t get crushed in the face, and he’s standing there like a statue,” Homa said. “Then he poured it right in the middle. So all the clichés you hear about him and all the old stories about how he will grind it out, it was fun to see that in person.”

The wind died. He made the putt. The gallery erupted.

Just like old times.

Golf is going through some cold times, and nostalgia is a warm blanket. Woods has five green jackets, one shy of Jack Nicklaus’ record. He finished Friday tied for 22nd on the leader board. Can he come back and win?

That doesn’t really matter.

What matters is, the greatest active Masters champion, who hadn’t been relevant in recent memory, made a record 24th consecutive cut in brutal, windy conditions. Golf’s most revered weekend will feature its most revered player. It’s just what the doctor ordered.

LIV Golf arrived in 2022 with billions in its bank, raided the talent cupboard, and fractured the game. Tiger didn’t leave, but, relegated to golf’s fringes, he saw his influence diminished. The lawsuits have been dropped and the sides are negotiating peace, but between the tacky LIV product and the weekly lameness of the PGA Tour, the game needed an elixir.

Tiger was tonic on Friday.

» READ MORE: Tiger Woods, 48 and hobbled, can’t win a sixth Masters, but he can make the cut. Should be enough.

Thanks mainly to wisdom, guile, and the best set of hands since Michelangelo, Woods got up and down six times in each of the first two rounds. That equals 12, or one fewer than the number of surgeries he has undergone. He posted at 1-over, then, after playing for about eight hours, he went to rest his reconstructed body and his 48-year-old bones.

“Yeah, I’m tired,” Woods said. “It’s been a long 23 holes, a long day.”

Rain had delayed the first round Thursday and forced Woods to play the final five holes of Round 1 on Friday morning at 7:50 a.m., then, after a 20-minute break, began Round 2.

Woods qualified to play the weekend of a full-field event for just the second time since a car crash in February 2021 shattered his right leg and nearly killed him. His intermittent comeback attempts have fizzled. He finished 47th at the 2022 Masters, tied for 45th at the 2023 Genesis Invitational, and either missed the cut or withdrew in his other four starts.

He made the cut here last year, but horrid conditions exacerbated plantar fasciitis in his foot, and he withdrew before Sunday’s final round. He had his ankle fused last April and didn’t resurface until December, at his 20-man Hero World Challenge, a singularly unchallenging event in the Bahamas.

Woods entered the 2024 Genesis in February after a bout with the flu, but was moving poorly in that tournament anyway. He didn’t show up at the Players Championship last month, saying his body wasn’t ready.

He looked ready Friday, and the faithful loved it. Galleries that numbered in the thousands moved with his group through his midday round, even as he teetered about eight shots behind the leaders all day. Their roars echoed through the oaks and pines.

The massive stands between the 11th green and 12th tee offer both a splendid vantage point and a chance to applaud players moving from the par-4 green to the most famous par-3 tee in the world. Woods was the last of his group to finish No. 11, and the fans gave him a standing ovation as he made his way from green to tee.

Homa, who was the leader in the clubhouse by late afternoon, was asked for his favorite moment of the day. It wasn’t any of his shots, which left him at 6-under.

“The walk up to 12 tee,” Homa said. “Tiger was last to walk up. That was cool.”

They cheered his every minor triumph. There were many.

He missed 10 of 18 greens in Round 2.

“I was forced to get up and down a few times today, and I was able to do that,” said Woods, who, in his 26th Masters, knows the best places to miss. “A lot of those chip shots I was able to get up and down because I left it in the perfect spot, and that’s understanding how to play this golf course. Most of the up and downs, I was in a perfect spot.”

Often, he hit the perfect shot.

“His short game was so good,” Homa said. “I don’t think I can explain how good some of the chip shots he hit today were.”

Predictably, Woods minimized the record. Simply making a cut isn’t the goal of the man with a record 683 weeks ranked No. 1 in the world, with a record-tying 82 PGA Tour wins, and 15 major championships, second only to Nicklaus.

» READ MORE: Masters leader Bryson DeChambeau remains a massively talented walking contradiction

“I have a chance to win the golf tournament,” said Woods, who stood eight shots behind Bryson DeChambeau at the time and reckoned that the gap would not grow. “I don’t think anyone is going to run off and hide right now.”

While it is not Tiger’s nature to be ornamental at a tournament, it is his nature to tease his buddies. He’s very close with Fred Couples, with whom he and Gary Player shared the record of 23 consecutive cuts made. Now, it’s his own.

“I think I will be able to, as soon as I’m done with you guys, text Freddy and give him a little needle,” Woods said.

Making the cut and extending that streak, it’s nothing more that a chance to tease with a text for Tiger.

It’s a reason to hope, and cheer, and watch for his fans, and the press, and the entire game of golf.