It was the blackest of Black Friday??s for Tiger Woods.

It was the blackest of Black Friday??s for Tiger Woods. The initial reports were sketchy and the fuzzy details of the incident left the police, the press and the public all scratching their heads in bamboozlement, like Stan Laurel trying to fathom out ??four down?? in The Herald??s cryptic crossword. This was the infamous moment, five years ago, when the Woods empire crumbled into a pile of twisted ruins and the life of golf??s biggest star unravelled amid lurid tales of rampant, extracurricular activities. When Woods careered out of his Isleworth mansion and crashed into a fire hydrant in the wee small hours of the morning after Thanksgiving, things would never be quite the same again. Even the fire hydrant became known as THAT fire hydrant; an oddly ghoulish celebrity kind of figure you half expected to see plonked on Oprah??s couch while spraying its own version of events to a captivated audience.

Since that fateful night in 2009, there has been scandal, divorce, injuries, victory droughts, comebacks, the end of that victory drought, more injuries, more comebacks, further injuries and now yet another comeback.

It??s been four months since we last glimpsed Woods at a tournament and it made for fairly bleak viewing as he creaked and groaned like a rusting hinge on a potting shed door. Having made a fairly hasty, and ultimately futile, return from his well-documented back problems in the Open Championship at Hoylake, Woods limped his way to a premature exit at the Bridgestone Invitational amid the kind of agonised yelping you??d tend to hear in a vet??s surgery packed with puppies. He then winced to a missed cut in the following week??s US PGA Championship and, sensibly, called time on his 2014 campaign.

Tomorrow, back in Isleworth where it all went decidedly pear-shaped, Woods will ease himself into competitive action again in his own, limited field invitational tournament, now known as the Hero World Challenge.

In the months that have passed since his last event, Woods has been a busy man, particularly on his keyboard. Firstly, he launched into a particularly robust response to a spoof article penned by the decorated golfing wordsmith, Dan Jenkins, and described the parody as a ??grudge-fuelled piece of character assassination.?? Then he took to his social media site to unveil Chris Como as his new ??swing consultant??, an alliance that will, well, swing into action this week. ??Physically, I wasn??t able to do some of the things we wanted to do with the swing (under former coach Sean Foley),?? he said. ??I needed to go a different direction.??

This new direction has involved a delve into the archives. ??It??s new but it??s old,?? Woods added on the motion he is now working on. ??We looked at a lot of videos of me as a junior and when I first came out here (on tour). It was interesting to see how much force I could generate with a skinny frame. It was also interesting trying to find a VHS recorder to watch the tapes. Fortunately my mom still has some of that stuff! But it??s an old motor pattern that I know and my body feels excited about it. I don??t feel like I??m hitting it very hard. But it??s coming off the face faster. We all lose things we could do when we were younger. We have to make adjustments as we get older. I can??t blow it out there with the longer guys anymore. I don??t quite have that. But there are other ways to get round a golf course. I??m not 40 yet, there??s still time. You can win at a late age. ??

Just 27 days shy of his 39th birthday, the latest chapter in the Woods story will begin. Given the ravages that have visited his body in recent years, and the excruciating way in which his earlier comebacks have petered out this season, it is easy to look at this forthcoming return with a degree of wariness. A brave new dawn or another false dawn? Only time will tell. Woods certainly appears to be in decent fettle having finally opted to take an extended period out of the game in an effort to nurse himself back to a reasonable state of health and fitness. Asked if he feared any more ill effects, Woods responded with an emphatic, ??no?? before adding: ??The body is good, it feels great I don??t have the sharp pain. I still have some aches and pains but I??m past the rehab portion. Now I??m in strength and development phase.??

The golfing landscape has continued to change in his absence. From Tiger??s tyrannical rule, we are now in the midst of the reign of Rory. As Woods hobbled and hirpled, McIlroy was buoyantly busy strengthening his position as the best player in the world with a fabulous year burnished by back-to-back major triumphs during a shimmering summer. Woods, creeping towards his 40s, is playing catch up in every sense but, given the magnitude of his achievements and the continued fascinated scrutiny of his every golfing move, any small signs of optimism and encouragement this week ?? and, conversely, any further chinks in the rattling armour - will be swiftly grasped by fevered observers

After a season spent asking about Woods?? back, Woods is back........again.

ENDS