The most encouraging Tiger Woods sign this week wasn’t his game 

Their fifth try at the PNC Championship was the closest Tiger and Charlie Woods have come to taking the Willie Park Trophy belts, but the most encouraging thing the elder Woods did this week had nothing to do with the 27 birdies and one eagle Team Woods carded.

Ever since Tiger made his first PNC Championship appearance after his February 2021 car crash, he’s taken advantage of the tournament’s status as a PGA Tour Champions event and taken a cart to get around the golf course.

Throughout his comeback, Woods has been adamant that his game and swing are not what holds him back in 72-hole events, but rather just simply walking 18 holes in a day.

In the lead-up to this week, though, Woods eschewed a cart during his Friday pro-am round, which proved to be a harbinger of things to come.

Woods walked 37 holes in the competition as well. That’s not necessarily a surprising accomplishment as Woods has walked 36 holes or more now five times this season — and no one is comparing a flat Ritz-Carlton Golf Club to Augusta National — but this is the first time he has hoofed it voluntarily at the PNC. When he tees it up in a major championship or at the Genesis Invitational, Woods does not have the option to take a cart, nor would he like to.

Woods was asked in 2021, when he made his first post-accident appearance at the PNC, if he would ever apply to use a cart on the Tour under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

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“Absolutely not,” he said. “Not for a PGA Tour event, no. That’s just not who I am. That’s not how I’ve always been, and if I can’t play at that level, I can’t play at that level.”

But it’s a perk he did take advantage of that week in Orlando and in his next PNC starts, before choosing to pace the fairways this week.

It didn’t seem to hurt his game, either, as he and Charlie, he said, “ham-and-egged it” in the scramble format to a tournament record-tying 28 under for 36 holes. While Charlie’s ace Sunday was by far the best shot the team hit all week, Tiger had plenty of his signature elite iron play to show off, like his escape from the trees on the opening hole Sunday.

Woods even dazzled with a dramatic driver-off-the-deck play on the par-5 14th that clocked 173 mph ball speed and held the green, giving the team an eagle look.

After he and Charlie eventually fell to Bernhard and Jason Langer in a playoff, Tiger again downplayed his game.

“I’m nowhere near competitive shape,” Woods told Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis. “I’m a great scramble partner. We made a great team this week and that’s the whole joy of it.”

Woods has nearly two months before the Genesis Invitational (traditionally his first appearance of the season) and only time will tell whether his game will be ready. But it seems he might at least be up for the stroll.