This did not look like the previous five comebacks from when he had the first of four back surgeries a week before the 2014 Masters. There was no sense of how long he would last, rather how long it would take for him to get sharper.

“Ninety holes over five days in a row ... I know he did that in the Bahamas, but those were 3½ hours, and now we’re playing five-hour rounds,” caddie Joe LaCava said. “That makes a difference because you’re adding about seven, eight hours on your feet, playing golf, thinking about what to hit, and hitting shots. So I’m glad he got through that. I’m not saying health isn’t going to be an issue, but it certainly looks better than it has.”

The only concern was off the tee. Woods hit 17 out of 56 fairways for the week, tied for last among the 77 players who made the cut. He hit only three fairways in each of the final three rounds, and his drive on the par-5 10th hole on the North Course was 65 yards left of the edge of the fairway.

But then, that might have worked in his favor.

How else would he get a sense that his back could handle so many violent swings required to get him out of that mess?

“Some of the shots I had to hit out of the rough, out of the trees, shaping them both ways, and a few times I had to jack up the speed,” Woods said after the final round. “And had no issues at all.”

The issue was being there in the first place, but there’s time.

Woods Watches His Tee Shot On The 12th. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Woods headed home for two weeks before he comes back out to California for the Genesis Open at Riviera, a course where he made his PGA Tour debut at age 16 in 1992 but last played in 2006. He’s likely to play the Honda Classic a week later, and then have two weeks off before the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill.

That might be it before the Masters. Woods is not in the two World Golf Championships in March. He is contemplating the Valspar Championship at Innisbrook, but that would mean four tournaments in five weeks, and that might be too much too soon.