Time to shake up a few myths about Tiger Woods' return to golf

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Everyone has an opinion -- and when the subject is Tiger Woods, everyone has a lot of opinions.

That hasn't stopped those opinions from flowing. Here are 10 of them -- call 'em myths, or uneducated guesses, or misguided hot takes, or just frivolous ideas spewed at so many 19th holes -- and why these opinions range from chunked chips to out-of-bounds shanks.

1. "If it doesn't click soon, he should just quit ..."

Quick: Name a Hall of Fame golfer who lost his game at some point in his career and decided to give it up.

Trick question. This person doesn't exist.

Even players whose careers have been cut short due to a decline in performance -- David Duval springs to mind -- didn't immediately pack it in when their game went south. It took years of effort before they came to the grim realization that they'd never be able to relive those glory years.

But here's the thing that always puzzles me: There's a growing sentiment among the fan base that believes if Tiger can't be the same Tiger who once dominated major championships, he should just stop trying.

Nice message for the kids, huh?

Sorry, folks. It's actually admirable that Woods knows he can't turn back the clock, knows he might struggle with multiple aspects of his game, knows he'll be picked apart for any on-course errors, but still wants to continue trying to return to prominence.

If people in other careers decided to quit as soon as their skill set declined, well, we'd have a lot of empty jobs in the world. Doesn't it feel hypocritical for these same people to request that of Woods?

2. "He needs to stop hitting driver off the tee ..."

Simple logic states that if a guy can't keep his driver on the planet, then he should scale back to fairway woods and long irons off the tee instead.

Hey, that might work at your local club, where just keeping yourself in play can earn you a victory in that $5 Nassau, but that's a losing strategy on the PGA Tour.

Last season, Ryder Cup team member J.B. Holmes led the circuit with a driving distance average of 314.5 yards; PGA Tour Player of the Year Dustin Johnson was second at 313.6.

Keeping up with those guys -- and so many others like them, as 27 players topped the 300-yard average off the tee -- is a daunting task in itself. If a player -- not just Woods, but any player -- takes driver out of his hands, he's essentially giving up some 30-40 yards per hole to the longest players. We've seen guys have success playing small ball, but unless every other aspect of their game is so good, it usually doesn't happen frequently or consistently.

The better solution? Woods should keep hitting driver, over and over, until he feels comfortable enough to start contending without compromising.

3. "He can't even hit a decent chip from just off the green ..."

Ah, the power of selective memory.

What many observers fail to recall, though, is that he figured it out. By the end of the last season he played competitively; he rid himself of this issue. Sure, there was a skulled chip through the green during the final round of the Wyndham Championship, the last event he played, but those major problems were largely irrelevant over the final four months of that year.

4. "He no longer has any motivation ..."

The last tournament Woods won was the 2013 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational. He tapped in for par to clinch a 7-stroke triumph, gave a TV interview on the final green and started to walk toward the nearby scoring trailer. Just then, his son, Charlie, who was 4 at the time, came boundlessly running toward him. Tiger's face lit up -- differently than it ever did during any of his other 78 victories on tour. He immediately hugged his little boy and carried him off the course, that smile never leaving his face the entire time.

Woods' children are older now; Sam, his daughter, is 9, and Charlie is 7. He never misses an opportunity to talk about being a dad, from attending their soccer games to driving them to school, like any other doting parent. Those kids are now at an age where they can understand who their father is, what he does for a living and how winning is the ultimate goal.

While it might be trite to insist that Tiger simply wants to win again, because he's a competitor and that's what competitors do, don't overlook his motivation to win again for his children, to show them the player who won so much before they understood what it really meant.

5. "He just needs to get healthy and his game will return ..."

For him, it has always been about going through the process. And now, yes, the first piece to this process is being healthy. It's not the only piece, though. Now that he's presumably healthy, he'll be able to practice more; once he can practice more, he can work on his swing; once he can work on his swing, his game will improve; once his game improves, he can start contending; once he starts contending, he can win again. You see? It's a process. It might sound clich? when Woods keeps saying the word, but it's all part of a cycle that can get him on the road to improvement.

6. "He should play more tournaments ..."

This is a popular one. It has been for years.

In truth, Woods painted himself into a corner here. Another one of those famous buzzwords he often employs is "reps" -- as in, he needs more reps for his game to come around. So when he doesn't add more events to his schedule, that idea is used against him, the conclusion being that he isn't taking his own advice.

Perhaps his decision to play the Wyndham for the first time in his final start last year suggests he'll alter his schedule to include more than the usual suspects. Before saying he should play more frequently and possibly even conclude he'll play more frequently, let's remember this: Woods is only a year removed from his third back surgery since March 2014.

Even though it theoretically might help his game to get more reps, it might not help his physical health. Woods was smart about this comeback and didn't try to start competing too soon. It stands to reason that he'll similarly be smart about the amount of golf he plays, keeping it to a logical minimum until he gets past any limitations.

7. "This week will provide a window into his future ..."

You know it's going to happen. Woods will spray a few tee shots and the masses will proclaim: "He's done!" Then he'll make a few birdies and they'll declare, "He's back!"

Nope. Doesn't work that way.

This week isn't all-or-nothing. There's nothing that will happen at the Hero World Challenge in December that will portend success or failure at the Masters four months from now -- or anywhere else.

This is a difficult proposition to comprehend in today's society, where we consume our news in 140-character morsels and make sweeping generalizations based on 10-second sound bites. But let's take Tiger's play in the Bahamas at face value. It's basically spring training for him, the first step of many in a comeback that won't reach some immediate conclusion. He has to start somewhere, and the Hero seems as good a time as any. Anyone seeking to make a long-term diagnosis of his game based on how he plays this week is missing the point of what he's trying to accomplish.

8. "Taking these vice captaincy roles means he won't play on U.S. teams again ..."

Woods served as an assistant at the Ryder Cup last month, and from the looks of things, he really enjoyed himself in the role. In fact, he enjoyed it so much that a few days later, he was named as one of three assistants to Steve Stricker for next year's Presidents Cup. Just like every vice captain for each team, Woods wants to be involved in the process of employing a strategy and constructing a roster, but that doesn't mean he has taken himself out of the running for still competing, too.

9. "Golf needs Tiger in order to survive ..."

This is one of my biggest pet peeves around the game right now.

I hate this idea. And you know what? It's just plain wrong.

The game is in a great place with young superstars such as Jason Day, Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson and Jordan Spieth all in the prime of their careers. It's not going anywhere. They're not going to stop holding tournaments just because Woods isn't involved. But people see the decline in television ratings and decreased numbers in participation at the recreational level and presume that Woods is the missing variable. With him, the game flourishes; without him, it perishes. That's too simplistic.

The Tiger Woods era was unlike any other period in the game's history. People of different cultures, races and ethnic backgrounds flocked to a game that had largely been considered a country club endeavor, rightly or wrongly. That was a blip on the radar, an uptick that will never be replicated. It's only sensible that in Woods' absence, we've witnessed a regression to the norm. The game will be in a much better place if he not only returns on a regular basis, but finds success in his latest comeback. Golf is better with him. But does it need him to survive? Absolutely not. It's not going anywhere.

10. "Nobody cares about Tiger anymore ..."

This one is almost laughable, but every time I so much as tweet something regarding Woods, I receive a few variations of this response.

Look, I get it. Some people are Tigered-out. Maybe they stopped caring after his personal indiscretions went public, or they think too much attention is being placed on the world's 879th-ranked player, or they're more into Phil Mickelson than Woods. That's fine. The assertion that the general public doesn't care about Tiger as he approaches this comeback is just plain wrong. This isn't some media-driven frenzy. There's a major appetite to see if he can return to form this week and beyond.

People care. They really do. Once again, it's that great unknown which is so intriguing. Woods is now entering what might be the final act of his career. Just as you wouldn't walk out on a great movie before the dramatic ending, there's no reason to walk away from this right now, either.