The sold out signs went up in Akron the second Tiger Woods edged into the world top 50 with his tied-sixth finish at the Open championship.
That result gained him entry into last week’s WGC-Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone, incidentally the scene of his last victory five years ago.
This is not the old Tiger we are seeing, the one that won 14 majors in 11 years. History shows there has been, and will only ever be, just the one of them.
But the reconstituted version is proving good enough to contend and enters the final major of the season, the PGA Championship at Bellerive in St Louis, justifiably among the favourites for the Wanamaker Trophy.
From a ranking of 1,199 last December, Woods is back among the elite and rising. His return is no longer a matter of romance but substantiated by cold, hard fact. Four top tens in 12 starts this year, two of those coming in his most recent events leading into Akron.
He finished one shot shy of taking the Valspar Championship into a play-off in March, and fifth a week later at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
At the Open Championship last month he led by a stroke on the final day with eight to play. A double bogey at the 11th followed by another dropped shot at the 12th eventually ended his challenge but not the idea of the Tiger resurrection.
Woods’ presence at the top of the leaderboard transformed the Carnoustie experience. His entrance on the first tee on day one evinced the biggest cheer of the opening round and reminded us what it felt like to be in the presence of box office gold.
Tiger Woods: Golf's biggest star is roaring back to the top
Tiger Woods is roaring again straight back to the top of world golf