NASSAU, Bahamas — Growing up, they all watched him, wanted to compete against him and dreamed about beating him.
Above all, though, the younger generation of today’s golf stars wanted to be Tiger Woods.
Nobody will ever do that, but this young generation of stars, led by Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Rickie Fowler, Rory McIlroy, Patrick Reed, Hideki Matsuyama, Brooks Koepka and Daniel Berger (to name only a few), might eventually have a chance to compete against Woods in top form.
If everything works out to plan for Woods, who finally is professing total health as he makes his latest comeback at this week’s Hero World Challenge with Thursday’s opening round at the Albany Golf Club, he might once again find the form that helped him to 14 major championships and 79 career victories.
“I grew up dreaming that I had a putt to win the Masters or the U.S. Open to beat Jack Nicklaus,’’ current U.S. Ryder Cup captain Jim Furyk told The Post. “These younger players all grew up imagining that same putt, but it was against Tiger Woods. For a lot of them, the reason they played and picked up the game and started loving it was because they watched him and wanted to be him.’’
Now they all want a piece of Woods, and they’ve playfully made that clear to him while being around him on the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup teams he’s helped as an assistant captain over the last couple of years.
“Absolutely, they’ve poked at him a little bit at the team events that they want to see him back because they want to play against him,’’ Furyk said. “Those of us who got our rear ends kicked by him over the years kind of chuckle, like, ‘Be careful what you ask for.’ ’’
Woods said, “In an ideal world, I would like to have them feel what some of my past guys had to go against all those years. I’d like to have them feel that same way.’’
Thomas, who’s paired with Woods in Thursday’s first round, has played some social rounds with Woods in South Florida, but he talked about the fact that he’s never played against “that person,’’ referring to Woods in his dominant prime.
Thomas joked about wanting to “kick his ass.’’
Woods, after his pro-am round Wednesday, responded, “There’s nothing wrong with that. It works both ways.’’
The fascination to this week’s tournament, and as long as Woods remains healthy, is to see how Woods measures up to this younger generation he was so highly responsible for breeding. Eight of the top-10 players in the world rankings are in the field, so this is a good litmus-test start for him.
“That’s what makes this exciting to watch,’’ Furyk said. “At 41 and at his best versus [the younger stars]? Who knows? That’s the exciting part of this for me.’’
Matsuyama, who won this event last year and is ranked No. 5 in the world, spoke Wednesday about how Woods’ first Masters in 1997 “left a big impression on me.’’
“Before school, I would turn on the TV and watch and he would always be on,’’ Matsuyama said. “I’ve never challenged for a championship or anything with him, but hopefully I’ll get that chance down the road. Justin and Jordan [and I], we haven’t seen his best golf, but if he gets back to that point, every week he’ll be the favorite and he’ll win a lot of tournaments.’’
Davis Love III, the 2016 Ryder Cup captain who’s close with Woods, said, “Jordan probably couldn’t wait to get to the Tour to play with and against Tiger Woods, but he hasn’t gotten to do it.’’
Spieth, after his pro-am Wednesday, said, “I certainly hope he becomes healthy enough to get tournaments in to where he can kind of get back to where he’s competing week in and week out. If that’s the case, then as long as we [the younger players] stay healthy, I imagine our paths will cross at some point.’’
That has potential to be the realization of a life-long dream of Spieth’s, and it would elevate interest in the game to new heights.
“When we came out, there weren’t as many guys to beat,’’ Love said. “Tiger now has a whole lot of guys that are really, really good to try to beat. Now, can he get back into the top 125 and get to the Tour Championship? Yeah. But to knock these guys off and be the dominant player again? He’s got a lot of competition. I think the sky’s the limit, but is he going to be world No. 1 for 500 weeks in a row again? No. But he can get back up there and compete and make it fun for all of us to watch.’’
That journey begins at 12:05 p.m. Thursday on the first tee at Albany Golf Club.