Will Tiger Woods play? Burning questions we can’t wait to see answered in 2022.

First, it was a three-second video of one swing accompanied by two words.

Making progress.

Then a 23-second video featuring action with a 3-wood lit up social media. Followed by repeated range sessions at the Hero World Challenge, with driver in his hands. And to wrap up the year, a triumphant return to competitive golf alongside his son, Charlie, in the PNC Championship.

Tiger Woods is on his way to another comeback.

And now the collective golf world is wondering: could Woods rise from the ashes of damage once again to work his way back to the top level of golf, as he did when he came back from spinal fusion surgery to win his 15th major championship and later his record-tying 82^nd PGA Tour title.

Yes, less than 10 months after the jaws of life were used to extract Woods from a damaged vehicle following a high-speed rollover accident in February that nearly took his right leg let alone his life, Tiger is no longer a lion in winter.

So let the questions begin. Will he play the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines? The Genesis Invitational at Riviera? The Masters at Augusta National? The 150^th anniversary of the Open Championship at the Old Course?

Woods, however, has tempered hopes by saying his body would never allow him to play full-time ever again. That he is left with the hope that he could pick a few PGA Tour tournaments here and there and gear his practice toward those events. Add in a few hit-and-giggle tournaments like the PNC Championship.

He has said more than a few times he is a long way off from being able to again compete against the best in the world – if he can ever again.

But remember, it was a somber Woods in December of 2015 at the Hero who asked, “Where is the light at the end of the tunnel? I don’t know. I think pretty much everything beyond this will be gravy.”

We saw what the gravy was.

So in 2022, while many other stories lines will provide burning questions, the one query that will still be at the forefront of the brains of golf fans will be if he can continue to make progress and play on the PGA Tour before 2023.

He’s Tiger Woods, after all, the best player of his generation and the unquestioned epicenter of the game for more than two decades. He’s been buried before, questioned many times over, and come out on the better side. If he plays or not, he’ll still be on the minds of those traveling in the circles of golf.

—Steve DiMeglio