Spoiler Alert: If you don't want to get an update on The Farmers Insurance golf tournament at storied Torrey Pines in San Diego, stop reading now.
As of Monday afternoon, it looks as though professional golfer Tiger Woods is going to begin his golfing year with a big bang, currently at 15 under and five strokes ahead of last year's victor, Brandt Snedeker.
I happened to be at Torrey Pines exactly six years ago this week, on a business trip, when Tiger also won (at that time the tournament was sponsored by Buick), and that also happens to be the first (and only) time I'd ever seen Tiger play live.
This, of course, was well ahead of the 2008 US Open, which Woods also won in a playoff against veteran player Rocco Mediate, and also a full year and a half ahead of Woods's "personal" issues.
So what's different this time around? In 2007, Snedeker was a tour freshman, and Woods pretty much owned professional golf.
In the past six years, however, a lot has changed, including the fabric of the tour. Irish phenom Rory McIlroy since appeared on the scene, and he's now the one in the Nike spotlight, having just signed a very lucrative deal (and also dealing with the transition to playing with Nike equipment).
Woods, on the other hand, was off in the wilderness, and only last year, after much coaching and a full swing overhaul, did he return even close to looking like the Tiger of old.
What's old is new again, because these past several days in San Diego, the old Tiger has become the new Tiger, or the new Tiger the old... or something along those lines.
He's pretty much owned the leaderboard, and despite a fogged out Saturday third round, his patience has been a virtue -- not to mention his short game, which has been virtuoso -- and never mind, his long drives straight up the middle, and his (typical) laser-lined iron shots.
After his US Open victory in 2008, Tiger revealed he would miss the remainder of that season due to knee surgery, and for those of us who watched the showdown with Mediate, it was pretty clear Woods was in a lot of pain.
This year, Woods seems healthier than ever, his game seems remastered (pardon the pun), and if he keeps it together the last three holes, he will have won once again on the course he played so much of growing up.
Then, more importantly, he strolls into the rest of 2013 -- including the first major of the season, The Masters, in April -- looking as though he could be a real contender, in the majors, the tournaments he enters, and of course, the now-cherished FedEx Cup.
Despite his ups and downs in recent years, Tiger still demands attention, thankfully more now on the course than off. You need only have watched the coverage these past few days of Woods to see the galleries looking bigger than ever, scaring the Tour freshmen but seeming to bolster Wood's confidence in all his shotmaking.
Make no mistake, 2012 was a great year for golf, what with Bubba's curved wedge shot to win out over Louis Oosthuizen in a playoff at Augusta, and McIlroy's missing the cut at the Olympic Club, and probably most notably, the US' failure to win back the Ryder Cup.
But Tiger taking Torrey by four or five strokes out of the gate in 2013, with Rory gazing on from off the side of the green, along with a host of new names we've never heard looking for a piece of the PGA action.
Well, let's just say 2013 might be an even bigger year than 2012 for professional golf, and a bigger one than that for Tiger Woods.
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