Tiger Woods looks like he’s having fun at Augusta this week, and I am totally drinking the Kool-Aid.

The greatest golfer of the last 25 years has been like a completely different person this week during practice rounds at The Masters. He’s smiling. He’s laughing. He’s carrying around his kids. He’s hamming it up for the gallery. He’s hugging other players, joking with them. He’s goofing off on the range.

He’ll play in the Par-3 Contest for the first time since 2004, and his kids will be on the bag.

He looks like he’s enjoying himself, which is something I haven’t seen in a over a year from Woods.

Is this new “happy Tiger” a totally orchestrated concoction devised by PR experts to make Woods more likable and once again endear him to public? We’ll never know. The cynical side of me says “probably.”

But at the same time, I can’t help myself but buy back in. I don’t even care if I’m being a sucker.

When Tiger Woods is having fun on the golf course, it makes me happy. It reminds me of when he was everyone’s favorite athlete, when it seemed like there was nothing he couldn’t do.

This week is the tenth anniversary of “the chip,” which is the single greatest golf shot I’ve ever seen and one of the few sporting moments that has ever caused me to run a full lap around a room, screaming, with my hands up in the air. Our own Steve DiMeglio talked to Woods about the shot this week, and Woods seemed content and delighted to recall everything about it.

Let’s watch it just so I can cue up old feels:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRCjJi_uDp8

If Woods is never going to be the world-beater he once was, that’s fine. I can accept that. But as he transitions to the next stage of his career, I hope he keeps up this version of Woods. It’s much less of a bummer to see him having fun out there. And who knows? Maybe he’ll play better.

He probably won’t. He’s had injuries. His body might not be right. But it seems like he’s tried everything else over the last year and a half, so I’m psyched he’s giving the old “have fun” thing a try. It can’t hurt.