PARAMUS, N.J.

Tiger Woods seems to be bigger now than when he was good.

Not that he’s all that bad.

Remember, it was just seven months ago that Woods began his year not knowing how his game would respond to four back surgeries that limited him to 19 starts on the PGA Tour and kept him out of the FedEx Cup playoffs since 2013.

Not only did he make it to the PGA Tour’s version of a postseason, he starts The Northern Trust at No. 20 out of the 125 players who qualified.

He is playing well enough to win. Even so, this is one time Woods will consider it a very good year even if he doesn’t.

“No doubt,” Woods said. “I didn’t know if I was ever going to play again.”

And that might explain the reaction to him.

It’s not just the headlines he makes for finishing 12th or the shot-by-shot TV coverage at every tournament. It’s the response outside the ropes that keeps getting bigger and louder, week after week, from Palm Harbor to Potomac, from the British Open to Bellerive.

Stewart Cink described the third round at the PGA Championship as “a pretty intense environment” playing with Woods, this from a man who played with him (and often lost to him) during a time when Woods looked close to unbeatable.

“I think everyone at the golf course cheers for him,” Brooks Koepka said after winning the PGA Championship at Bellerive while hearing one ear-splitting cheer after another for Woods on the back nine.

Tigermania first struck in 1997 with his watershed victory at the Masters. It hit again during a stretch from 1999 through 2001, when Woods won five of six major championships and 19 out of 38 events on the PGA Tour.

And now it’s back at full tilt for a guy who hasn’t won in more than five years.

Some of that is because fans thought they might not ever see him play again. And some of that could be from those who wonder how much longer he’ll be around.

“I think that people are more … I guess appreciative,” Woods said. “I don’t want to make that sound wrong or anything, but they know that I’m at the tail end of my career, and I don’t know how many more years I have left. But I’m certainly not like I was when I was 22. Forty-two, it’s a different ball game.”

The Northern Trust is the five-year anniversary of Woods first showing undeniable evidence of back problems, dropping to his knees with spasms during the final round on his way to a runner-up finish.

That seems a distant memory now.

Woods delivered the largest crowd Tampa had ever seen for a golf tournament when he finished one shot behind at the Valspar Championship.