Golf's increasingly-dominant young breed are intrigued as Tiger Woods prepares to return to tournament golf.
"I'm probably just as excited to watch it as you are," said player of the year Justin Thomas as he prepared to start alongside the 14-time major champion in the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas on Thursday (Friday AEDT).
It will be 41-year-old Woods' fifth comeback since his first bout of back surgery in 2014, but expectations appear higher given his practice efforts.
"He seems more confident this year the way he's walking and talking," said world No.2 Jordan Spieth, battling illness which reduced him to a whisper following the long trip from last week's Australian Open.
"So we're all very interested, as we should be, in how it goes for him this week - and obviously, hoping that's the start."
Now reportedly pain-free following surgery to fuse two discs in his lower back, Woods will get to measure himself over four rounds in a no-cut event with a red-hot 18-man field including eight of the top nine players in the world.
The tour scene has changed dramatically since he dominated so comprehensively when he was world No.1 for a total of 683 weeks between 1997 and 2013.
In the 2017 US PGA Tour season, players aged 25 and under won 18 events and pgatour.com reported that was eight more than the previous best of 10 - which came in a year when Woods won nine of them.
The likes of Thomas, Spieth, John Rahm and Hideki Matsuyama now battle for supremacy with world No.1 Dustin Johnson.
Thomas and Spieth would love to see Woods return as competitive force on tour.
But Australian veteran Rod Pampling wonders if they really understand quite what they are wishing for.
"I want to see him stare down a few of these young guys so they can experience what it's like when the hairs stand up on the back of your neck or when he's the guy you have to chase," Pampling told pgatour.com.
"They've seen his dominance as kids, but they've never felt it.
"Realistically if he got to 75 per cent of where he used to be he'd still be able to win a couple of times a year."
