Woods gave every sign he can return to his 109-tournament winning career shooting a final round 68 for an eight-under par tally and a share of 10th in the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas.

Woods capped his first four-rounder in 12 months with an eagle, six birdies before spoiling the gloss with a pair of closing bogeys.

The result will see Woods, and currently ranked a lowly 1199th in the world, move to the new World No. 673.

He said:  “How much I will play is a great question.  We are going to sit down in order to figure out what is the best way for me to build, build my schedule for the Major Championships.

“We will work out how much my training cycles are going to be and play enough but not play too much.

“I don’t know what golf courses I will be playing or what is the best way to go about it but I will sit down with my whole team and figure it out.”

Woods traditional Sunday red shirt was near red-hot with the tournament host burning-up the course over the outward nine and brilliantly bouncing back from a third round 75.

Woods lipped-out for birdie at the first but made-up for it holing birdie putts at the par-5 third hole and the par-3 fifth holes to be two-under for his round and clearly delighting good friend and Tennis World No. 1 Rafael Nadal.

A week earlier, Nadal and double Masters winning Jose Maria Olazabal had hosted a Pro/Celebrity outing at the Pula Golf Club in Son Servera and with Nadal leading his team to victory.

Woods brilliantly drove the green and the shortened par-4 seventh and then fell to his knees as he 25-foot eagle putt neared the cup before triumphantly rising to his feet with both arms raised.

Nadal said: “Tiger is unbelievable.  I just love to see him play whether it is here or on TV.

“He looks so comfortable playing out there in coming back from injury and he played an amazing shot for the eagle.

“The first thing is you need to be healthy to practice again as well as be mentally strong to do the things you think you need to do to be back to your top.

“If Tiger’s healthy then I believe that has everything to where he deserves to be.”

Woods had been three-over through seven holes in Saturday’s testing windy conditions but was now four-under through the same stretch on Sunday.

The long-time World No. 1 then launched a booming drive down the par-5 ninth only to just catch a greenside bunker with his approach before landing his bunker shot to three-feet before calmly walking-up to hole for a third birdie of the day.

Woods made a mess of the short 10th in taking a double-bogey but it was a mere hiccup as Woods proceeded to birdie the 11th ahead of one-putting the 14th and 15th holes for birdie and now move to 10-under.

He then bogeyed 17 and rushed his par putt on 18 to also drop a shot but there were far too many good signs over the four days to suggest Woods could again be a force in golf.