AUGUSTA, Ga. — And now they’ll play a golf tournament.
The wildly anticipated Tiger Woods press conference has come and gone.
The first public sighting of Woods hitting golf balls has taken place.
Some of the rampant curiosities that have built so dramatically during Woods’ self-imposed exile that followed his sex scandal have been sated.
What if he wins?
Can you handle that?
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What if Woods, after months of shame and ridicule and the likely disintegration of his marriage, wins the Masters this weekend?
Where would that rank in the pantheon of magical Masters moments?
You’d have to think it would tower above all the mystical moments this tournament has delivered over the years — with the possible exception of Jack Nicklaus’ 1986 win at age 46.
How would you feel if Woods were to win his fifth jacket come sunset on Sunday?
Would you be shocked considering the turmoil that has engulfed his life and his five-month layoff from competition?
Would that feat amaze you even more than his record-shattering 12-shot victory in 1997 at Augusta, which was his coming-out party to the world?
Would you embrace him for his brilliance on the golf course or loathe him for what he did to his family, himself and the sport of golf?
There are so many fascinating elements to this story it leaves you salivating for 1:42 p.m. today when Woods tees it up with playing partners K.J. Choi and Matt Kuchar in the Masters’ opening round.
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Will he hit it sideways on No. 1 and struggle from there, or will he pipe one up the hill past the bunker on the right, settle in and begin to make his methodical march toward contention on the back nine Sunday?
“If he’s in it,” Geoff Ogilvy said, “it will be crazy.”
Woods has been widely questioned by his peers for not playing a tournament before the Masters to sharpen his game.
The reviews among those who’ve watched him practice this week have been mixed. Some of his peers — including Mark O’Meara, one of his closest confidants — said his game looks strong. Others have noticed him hitting it crooked. It’s difficult to truly gauge a player’s form from watching practice rounds, because they often hit multiple shots from different areas of the course to prepare for certain situations.
Can he win?
“Well, that’s a crazy question to ask, can he win?” Phil Mickelson said. “I don’t think anybody expected him to play well in the 2008 U.S. Open; he had not touched a club in a while or not played in a while and he was injured, and yet he came back, and he won.
“He showed that he can win in much worse [physical] condition in the 2008 U.S. Open. I played with him the first couple of rounds and he was not physically at his best obviously and his game was not the sharpest and yet he still wins. He finds a way to get it done.
“I don’t believe he has any physical ailments right now and I expect his game to be sharp. I mean, this is a golf course he’s won on four times and loves as much as I do and plays it as well as anybody ever has in the history of the game. So this is a place that I think a lot of people know that he can win on, and it’s going to take a good performance to beat him.”
Since the moment Woods announced he would make his return at the Masters, the bookmakers installed him as the favorite.
“Those guys that set the odds know a lot more than I do,” Padraig Harrington said. “I would not be surprised at all [to see Woods win]. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was contending, but I just don’t know. No matter how he looks or what he says, you don’t know fully how this is affecting him inside and how it’s affecting his golf.
“I would not be surprised at all if he was contending and I would not be surprised if he played better golf than ever, but there’s obviously a doubt to that and we will only be able to find that out on Sunday evening.”
As O’Meara said, “Now we just have to let him go and play golf.”
mark.cannizzaro@nypost.com