This Masters is as much about a red shirt as a green jacket.

Tiger Woods is back for only the second time in the last five years, and what makes the sight of him at Augusta National even more tantalizing is that Woods is starting to look like the player who dominated golf for nearly 15 years.

He has power. His short game is sharp. He makes putts.

Never mind that Woods is not ranked among the top 100 players. Or that it has been 13 years since he last won the Masters in that Sunday red shirt, and four years and eight months since he last won any tournament.

The buzz following Woods since his return from a fourth back surgery has been bigger and louder than when he was No. 1 in the world, piling up 79 victories on the PGA Tour and 14 majors. The longer he was away from the game, the more his feats looked even more legendary. And the longer he was gone, the more plausible it was that Woods might never return, at least not at a competitive level.

In his last three starts leading to the Masters, Woods was within one shot of the lead at some point in the final round. His only close call was the Valspar Championship, when he was a 40-foot birdie putt away on the 18th hole from forcing a playoff.