TNT's Huber: With Tiger, everything's changed, or has it?

Like most everyone, TNT's Jim Huber knows that Tiger Woods is not only golf's greatest competitor but an even greater enigma. And, Huber writes, there's nothing wrong with that.

By Jim Huber, Special to PGA.com

Images race through my mind like spinning tops, out of control. Colors flash past, voices come from every side, thoughts blossom like the exhaust of small bombs.

I have flashed forward to the initial emergence of the rest of our lives, to a place so often compared to Eden, where life begins anew each spring, to Augusta National and The Return.

And, frankly, nothing has changed.

I stand at the back of the interview room in the huge, remodeled Media Center, and for the 16th straight year, he guards his answers as jealously as, well, let's not get into that.

We have already seen the way it will go. You will ask about Thanksgiving night, about all the tabloids, about his family, and he will say it's none of our business, that it is between him and his family. His eyes are softer than in years gone by, worn like stones in a furious stream, but they show no more than they ever have. He will not let us in and, as it's been in the past, that will be just fine. It has to be.

I stand under the ancient sprawling oak behind the whitewashed clubhouse and watch as a phalanx in black, pistols holstered, badges glittering, marches quickly past, a tall dark man in red somewhere in their midst. It is as though he is being carried, like some Egyptian prince, into battle.

It could be 2001 or 2. It is, instead, the dawning of a new age with very little of the awe and all of the awww. That is all that has changed but it is stunning in its enormity.

I stand to the rear of the 12th tee, hidden in the masses, awaiting his arrival. Heads turn, as if deer in a feeding field, cautiously watching in unison. There are quiet murmurs, an awkward laugh at some whispered joke, a shush. We want to shout out but know it would not only be wrong, it would be our last words on this particular acre.

I look around for the guardians of grace. Surely they are embedded amongst us, listening, waiting. It is nothing new. They have always been there, asking for our hush, but it is a different unspoken command this time around.

There is applause, polite at first and then uproarious, as he arrives with his 8-iron in hand. Eight? Nine. He stares at the gently swaying pines, throws tiny bits of grass into the sky, just as he has for the last 15 Thursdays here. The only difference is the size of the biceps and the transgression. We are aware of both and hold our tongues.

I stand behind the 18th green, unable to see anything because of the grandstands, able only to tell of his routine par by the rise and fall of the faithful's murmur. He stops to sign his scorecard, retrieves his watch and wedding ring from his stalwart caddie and ... wait ... wedding ring?

Has he worn a wedding ring before? I close my eyes and try to retrieve the man's hands from years gone by. There is the white tape on the second finger of his right hand, to protect the calluses from the hundreds of thousands of beaten balls over his lifetime. There is nothing else.

I watch him be gathered up by the same retinue of armed guardians to be swept back to the clubhouse, past the same people, the same huge oak.

And the most long-awaited repatriation in all of sports is over. 

Where are we, then? Everything has changed and nothing. We have the man back but did we ever have him in the first place? We thought we knew him and how wrong we all were. We figured perhaps upon his return, we will be better informed.

And we know, down deep, he will remain not only our greatest competitor but an even greater enigma. For all time. There is nothing wrong with that, quite frankly. It simply maintains our distance.

The breeze picks up and a stream of yellow pollen makes its way across the first fairway. Bright pink azaleas wink and white dogwood blossoms wave and life goes on.

I see all this days, weeks, in advance.

Am I wrong?

Jim Huber is an Emmy Award-winning announcer with TNT. The views and opinions expressed here do not reflect those of PGA.com, PGATOUR.com or The PGA of America.