Tiger Woods smiles during practice for the PGA Championship in August. Woods is happy to be back at the PGA Tour's season-ending Tour Championship, which starts today at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, for the first time since 2013.ATLANTA- Tiger Woods faces long odds for capturing the FedEx Cup and the $10 million bonus in the PGA Tour's 2018-19 season finale that starts Thursday.
That's all relative this year.
Having his own parking spot at East Lake Golf Club, being back at the Tour Championship for the first time since 2013 and even feeling lost during a practice round - because the nines were flipped - were reminders his greatest accomplishment this year is being part of the 30-man field that qualified for the event.
"I think the season itself has been amazing, to be able to have played this well," Woods said Wednesday. "I didn't know how many tournaments I'd play in, and next thing you know, here I am in the Tour Championship. To have come back from where I've come back from and to get here has been a pretty tall order."
Woods didn't make it in 2014 because of his first back surgery and an ill-advised attempt to return too early. He missed the entire FedEx Cup playoffs in 2015, when he couldn't chip the ball onto the green from 20 feet away early in the season and his back acted up late in the season. He missed all of 2016 while recovering from two more back surgeries, and all but one PGA Tour event in 2017 because of a fourth back surgery.
Never mind that Woods is at No. 20 in the FedEx Cup standings, having started no worse than No. 3 in his four previous FedEx Cup finales. This is one tournament where it's more about the start than the finish.
"It's great to have accomplished one of the goals I set out at the beginning of the year: to make it back to East Lake to be part of the Tour Championship and part of these top 30 guys," he said. "I've exceeded a lot of my expectations and goals because so much of it was an unknown."
The only thing left to cap off a remarkable comeback would be a trophy, and this is his last chance this season.
That still probably wouldn't be enough for Woods to win the FedEx Cup for the third time - no one else has won it more than once - and the better odds are with the top five seeds - Bryson DeChambeau, Justin Rose, Tony Finau, Dustin Johnson and Justin Thomas - who only have to win the Tour Championship to take home the richest bonus in golf.
Thomas has even more at stake. No one, not even Woods, has won the FedEx Cup in successive years. Thomas was runner-up at East Lake a year ago, which was enough for him to move past Jordan Spieth and capture the FedEx Cup.
"I'm excited to have an opportunity to do something that no one has ever done, which is pretty cool," Thomas said. "I'm not sure if it was true or not, but I heard that no one had been in the top five (of the FedEx Cup standings the following year) after winning the FedEx Cup."
It's true.
Woods never followed a FedEx Cup title with a top-five seed because he was recovering from knee surgery in 2008 and he was putting his personal life back together in 2010. Spieth won in 2015 and was No. 7 going into the Tour Championship the following year. Spieth didn't make it back this year, finishing at No. 31 after a poor week at the BMW Championship.
It was an example that even some of the best in the world can't bank on making it back to East Lake without playing great golf. Woods was good enough, and better than he thought.
He was in the mix on the back nine at the year's last two majors. He went to the final hole of the Valspar Championship in March needing a birdie to tie for the lead. He had six finishes in the top 10. The number that means the most might be the amount of tournaments he has played: the Tour Championship is his 18th event, his busiest schedule to date since 2012.
Woods first showed signs of back trouble in the final round of the 2013 PGA Championship, though he revealed Wednesday his back first started acting up a year earlier during the Ryder Cup, where he asked to play as late as possible.
"That's the only wave I've ever missed," said Woods, who sat out the Saturday morning session and ended up halving the last of 12 singles matches as Europe rallied from a four-point deficit to win at Medinah Country Club in Illinois.
East Lake is only part of the reward. Woods will be on the charter Sunday night to France for his first Ryder Cup since 2012. He finished 11th in the standings and was an easy choice as a captain's pick for Jim Furyk.
Spieth is the only American on the Ryder Cup team not at the Tour Championship. For the other 11, along with six players on the European team, the focus is on the FedEx Cup and its $10 million prize this week, followed by a cup with no financial prize at all - but plenty of reward - next week.