If 2018 has taught us anything, it's that Tiger Woods is human after all

Here's your zen moment: Tiger Woods enters the ring of the 17th hole 600 yards, Sunday at Bellerive, the edges of the tee-off full of photographers and supporters and old officials in short-sleeved shirts, all soaked. St. Louis in August.

Everyone, including Tiger, knew that if he could find a miracle – an eagle-bird arrival – he still had a chance. A chance to win his first tournament in five years and his first major in eleven. Now he had to use all his training to block those thoughts. Freestanding this year (regardless of the old school) and seeking to recreate the feeling of his childhood for the game, Woods needed a smash-mouthed player. But at 42, her golf ball does not follow orders as she did in the day. He hit a slice in the weeds. It was finished.

Then comes the moment: Tiger's second red blow on the left tee, stamped "PGA" in gold letters. This swing had heat.

And that's when you knew that Tiger was back. Not in the conventional sense. Tiger does not recoup what he once had, not in any game category, except for the criticism revealed at that time. His intensity and desire are still there. No matter what Woods does in the next five years or so, he will go swinging.

Tiger Woods is all smiles after winning the Tour Championship.

Brooks Koepka is the player of the year and there is no finalist. But Tiger Woods, to use the sexist language of TIME magazine in the past, is the man of the year in golf. You could almost drop the golf game. The impact that Tiger the golfer has had on ratings on television is a passing story. What the man that man did was improve, in every respect. As it is inspiring.

There are now two remarkable golf stories that start at the edge of a road. Ben Hogan's life and times can not be told without a long layover on February 2, 1949, when a carelessly driven Greyhound bus crashed into the Hogan Cadillac sedan under his guidance. What saved Hogan's life was his dive into the lap of his wife, Valerie, who was trying to protect her. A moment later, the steering column impaled the back of the driver's seat. Hogan's body was mutilated. But he survived, then he started again.

You can not separate what Tiger did in 2018 from what happened on May 29, 2017, when police found Woods asleep in his car at two in the morning, at the edge of a road south of Florida. His black Mercedes sedan had two apartments. Woods' drug abuse had made him completely incapable. He could have killed someone that night, including himself. If the police had brought him home instead of Palm Beach County Jail, there would be no need to say where Woods would be right now. No matter what work Woods has done since last night – outside and inside – is impressive.

Given his orientation and strikes at Torrey Pines and Riviera earlier this year, I would never have imagined finishing the first shot in Tampa in March or heading backward on Sunday at Carnoustie in July in the clubhouse on Sunday night in Bellerive, as he did for a brief, brilliant time. The understanding of Woods' game and his work ethic are certainly at Hogan's level. And this is only the technical side. There is also gray: its need for excellence, its ability to travel in time.

His victory in the tour championship came on a serious golf course. Have you seen the land that he made Bermuda on a terracotta field above the 17th green at East Lake? And what about what needs to do four foot tracking? High art and dry hands. He had to channel his 1996 amateur victory to the United States, as well as a hundred others. Golf is always past and present, past and present. We can say that the victory at East Lake was his most remarkable to date, given what he had been 16 months earlier.

The human regeneration capacity is amazing. Tiger Woods actually looks different now. You have regularly heard him use a variant of "grateful" this year. He had his hug for "Brooksy" in St. Louis. His praise for the young Sam Burns at Honda. His hand up for the captain's captaincy. And that's his public life.

Remove the fame, wealth and talent of Tiger. He is just another older single father trying to raise two children. This must be the starting point of his private life. Yes, his next stop was this terrible Ryder Cup, but it would be a passing embarrassment for him. I guess the poor pay-per-view concert in Las Vegas will be too.

The next chapter of the tiger book could be his best. When Tiger won the 1997 Masters, I had a fantasy about what he could do for the game, with regard to the reversal of the privet hedge around his first tee. But it did not happen much. Tiger was a god of golf, distant and untouchable, until the shyness of his childhood turned into adult arrogance. But that was then.

Life has done what life does, and now we know it is human. It's better.