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Tiger Woods is wearing one of his requisite Nike ensembles -- white hat, blue shirt, gray pants -- and is stretched out, feet crossed, in a thick brown leather chair in the front row of a small movie theater at ultra-exclusive Albany, a posh resort community that sprawls some 600 acres in the southwest corner of New Providence in the Bahamas.

“This is how we watch TV at home,” he cracks as he settles in for an interview with PGATOUR.COM. “We play video games this way, too.”

Woods has a lot of time for video games these days. Two microdiscectomys and a third back procedure in the span of 20 months has the 14-time major champion laid up for the foreseeable future.

He also has a lot of time for TV watching. Just a few days earlier, he viewed with interest as one of his superstar athlete contemporaries, Kobe Bryant, told the world this will be his last season in the NBA.

The irony wasn’t lost on Woods.

The two came into their respective sports at the same time, in the fall of 1996. The former was a wiry shooting guard who attacked the rim straight out of high school at 18 years old; the latter a lean 20-year-old picture of power, precision, perfection and touch who was already the best in his game and would go on to redefine it.

Twenty years later as Woods watched Bryant’s press conference, he admitted he couldn’t help but feel a little like he was looking in a mirror. Bryant, too, has been riddled with injuries the last few years.

“I know what it entails on the other side (of back surgery) and what that long haul is and how hard that is,” Woods said. “It’s tough. And with Kobe, to put all that work and effort in and know you’ve got nothing left in your body, that’s tough.

“We see it with a lot of athletes. When you know that the end is coming, you can see the writing on the wall.”

But that’s where the similarities end, at least in Woods’ eyes.

“If Kobe took three years off and he came back at 40, you don’t see guys in the NBA do that,” he said. “If a golfer does that and goes away for a year or two, we’ve seen guys do that and all of a sudden they come back and have success.

“That could happen.”

Tiger Woods turns 40 on Dec. 30 amidst a seemingly endless string of health setbacks. He has fallen from world No. 1 to world No. 414 in just under two years. He has changed his swing and changed the men who work with him on that swing.

Meanwhile, the PGA TOUR has accelerated instead of remaining at idle while waiting for his return. Youngsters such as Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy, Jason Day and Rickie Fowler are the new breed, ready to win now -- and doing so in bunches.

At 40, if Tiger wanted to take the next step of his career -- make that the next step of his life -- he has certainly earned that right, just like Kobe. But as of now, he still remains focused on his comeback, of getting back to the grind, feeling the heat of battle on a Sunday afternoon once again, hearing those cheers that only a Tiger gallery can produce.

It will be tough. There are no guarantees.