After Tiger Woods appeared in a TW Foundation Periscope video last week, hitting balls at a clinic for about 100 during Tiger Jam in Las Vegas, pundits and fans couldn’t help speculating when he would return to competitive golf. Will it be at The Players, Memorial or the U.S. Open?

That’s all guesswork. However, Woods did give some clear insights into how he goes about testing new golf equipment during that 23-minute range session.

After hitting a series of sand wedges, 8-irons, 4-irons and a couple of 5-woods shots, the 14-time major winner hit a few balls with a new Nike 3-wood fitted with a new shaft.

After hitting his first shot, Woods said, “That’s a bullet, isn’t it? The shaft actually takes a little spin off the golf ball, and I use a pretty spinny golf ball, so I might need another half-degree or three-quarter-degree (of loft) on this club here for it to be good.”

Woods hit two more shots with the club and said, “I can’t quite get it higher than that. (It’s) not conducive to par 5s. It’s a great driving 3-wood, I can tell you that. It’s got some heat to it. That’s good to know.”

Woods proceeded to hit two shots with his driver before saying, “I have two new drivers here that (Nike) just sent me. I haven’t hit them yet, so let’s see where they go. I’m going to try to copy the one I just hit.”

Seconds after hitting the first, before the shot could have reached its apex, he muttered, “Aaah, that’s a piece of —-,” which drew a big laugh from the crowd. “It’s too spinny. We’re trying to get the center of gravity just right. The CG is too far forward.”

Another swing and another quick comment. “I can’t draw this ball,” he said. “There’s no way. OK, that driver is out,” and he turned and put it away.

Think about that. After one shot, Woods could feel that the prototype driver wouldn’t work. After hitting the second shot, he confirmed his initial thought and got the club out of his hands.

“We’re just trying to find a backup to what I have and trying to get it to marry up exactly,” Woods said. “That’s the hardest thing. It’s like snowflakes; not one is the same. You try to get as close as possible.”

After hitting the second driver, Woods said, “Same thing, won’t move. OK, we can tell them that we hit ’em, right?”

Woods went back to the first driver he hit, proceeded to hit a shot and said, “OK. I can turn this one over. I tried to make the same swing there. You can see how it is on tour with testing. I hit the last two drivers, but they were slicing, right? So I know, instinctively, I know that I am going to have to throw this thing early to get it to hook or draw. (But) this one automatically does that, it (creates) a straight ball to a draw, and now I hit a hook.

“Those three swings have taken me out of my natural swing, and that’s the hard part about testing. If you don’t get it right in the first couple of swings, the club has to be gone because as players, we’ll start adapting. Now I have to go back and say, ‘OK, don’t drill this thing because the other drivers didn’t hook. Go ahead and make my natural swing.’ ”

Woods did that and based on his positive reaction, liked what he saw. “Now I’m fine,” he told the crowd.