NASSAU, Bahamas -- It was just minutes after completing a nine-hole Monday practice round with a group that included Derek Jeter when Tiger Woods began waxing nostalgic about their career parallels.
"Even though he's older and spent a couple of years in the minors, we both came up in '96," Woods said. "When I was having my run, he had his run. When Kobe [Bryant] had his run with Shaq [O'Neal], his three in a row, that's when Jeter and I had our run. So we're all the same age, we all came up together doing the same stuff. We were talking about that a little out there today."
Of course, that walk down memory lane took a hard right turn when he reached their current situations.
Woods flashed a knowing smile and a quick laugh, then boasted: "I get to keep playing."
It's been nearly 16 months since his last competitive tournament start, but Woods will indeed keep playing, beginning with this week's Hero World Challenge. Not only will he once again serve as host of the event but he'll also be the main storyline, a near-41-year-old 14-time major champion returning to the public spotlight after three back surgeries.
If there's a difference in Woods between now and the last time we saw him play, it's not a tangible one. He looks the same. He dresses the same. Even that oft-critiqued swing of his appears pretty similar to the naked eye to the one that netted him a T-10 result at the Wyndham Championship in August 2015.
No, the difference might be less in what we see than what we hear, if we listen carefully.
Even in a brief, impromptu interview session with a half-dozen reporters Monday afternoon, Woods seemed more inclined to ruminate on the good ol' days than in the past. He seemed more conscious of his place among the PGA Tour's elder statesmen, allowing that he knows less than one-third of the competitors on any given week in a full-field tournament.
And he again waxed nostalgic for those days when he didn't have to work so hard to prepare himself to play.
"We miss the days of going to the first tee and hitting it 300 yards with a balata ball and a persimmon driver," he said. "We can't do that anymore."
Although Woods admitted that much of his conversation with Jeter around the back nine at Albany Golf Club was just playful needling, they did speak about the difficulty in getting ready to compete later in their careers.
"I was talking to Jeets about it," Woods said. "He broke his ankle, so when he came back from that, how long did it take him to get ready for each game? It takes three or four hours. You'd think you just show up at a ballpark, take BP, take a few grounders and off you go. But no; it's a long time. And it's the same thing with me."
Tiger Woods on Derek Jeter's golf game: pic.twitter.com/pTUcWtc3Zl
— Jason Sobel (@JasonSobelESPN) November 28, 2016
It might sound as if he was pondering professional mortality, but that was hardly the takeaway. Instead, he was offering an explanation for how those career parallels between golf and other sports come to a halt at a certain age.
"They're forced out because of age, salary cap, less ability to move," he explained. "But in our sport, you see how far I'm hitting it. Jim Furyk just shot a 58 hitting it as far as he does. So you can play different ways and still win tournaments in golf. You can't do that in baseball. You can't do that in football. You can't do that in basketball. Once you miss that window, you're done. We're starting to see that with [Roger Federer]. It's sad. You saw how dominant he was, but you can see how it's not quite the same. The same with Jeets; after he broke his ankle, he wasn't quite the same. It's sad.
"God bless his soul, Arnold [Palmer] played into his 70s. Gary [Player] played the Masters [52] times. Imagine Jeter playing for 50 years? I mean, you just can't fathom that."
After his lengthy absence and considering his recent physical history, it might be difficult to fathom Woods continuing to play for so long, either.
For now, all we know is that he'll keep trying, starting with this week. While Jeter, Kobe, Federer and other athletes of the same generation are either retired or nearing that point, Woods is a golfer. And he knows exactly what that means: "I get to keep playing."
