Is Tiger Woods Back?

Is it only a matter of time before this becomes a
familiar site again?

I’m sure you’ve heard enough of people slanging Tiger Woods over the last few years. He has given us enough ammunition to last a lifetime but with all this behind him (we assume so anyway), is it time that Tiger will get back on the winners podium? His last five tournaments have seen him finish 3^rd (Australian Open), 1^st (won the Presidents Cup with USA), 1^st (Chevron World Challenge), T3 (Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship), and T15 (Pebble Beach Pro-am).

Sure, many of you will look at those last five tournaments and say, well the Australian Open isn’t a quality field, the Presidents Cup is a team event and the Chevron World Challenge is Tigers own event. So the only really good result is the T3 in Abu Dhabi. There were many top players in those fields, and Tiger only controls his own destiny (bar the Presidents Cup obviously!), so to have a snipe about his opposition is completely unfair.

Tigers next tournament is the WGC Accenture World Match Play. Unfortunately, with his inconsistency over the last couple of tournaments (especially when it counts), I can’t see him winning this tournament. All it takes to lose is one bad round, or coming up against a 64, which Tiger hasn’t shown he has a full 18 holes of quality yet. In saying this though, I do think he’ll progress to the last eight/four and this will only spur him on with the Masters in sight.

Is this man going to do this decade what Tiger did at the
beginning of the last decade? i.e. go berserk.

Although the depth of world golf may be at its peak over the last five years, apart from Rory McIlroy, it is hard to see someone going head-to-head with Tiger, when Tiger does start to show some consistency. I can see Tiger winning at least three tournaments this year (assuming he stays healthy), including a major along the way. If he continues to find himself amongst the lead on Saturday night, expect Tiger to rediscover some of his winning mentality, and that may be all it takes to break the shackles.