There are certain golf courses that are so comfortable for Tiger Woods, they just about have a pair of baffies and a log for the wood burner on the first tee. Torrey Pines, the Old Course, Augusta National … you name it, Woods will snuggle into it like a well-worn cardigan.
This week, it’s a visit to yet another happy hunting ground for the prowling Tiger as he returns to the Arnold Palmer Invitational at a Bay Hill course where he has won eight times.
Should he pull off victory No 9 in this neck of the golfing woods, he will whip up the kind of noise you’d get with a stack of Marshall amplifiers. Woods’ increasingly rousing renaissance continues to rock the golfing world, after all.
To use a Spinal Tap-ism – perhaps not the best reference given the bother Woods has had with his dodgy dorsal down the years - a Tiger triumph really would turn it up to 11.
For his first appearance at Bay Hill in five years, Woods has been installed as the favourite, a development which underlines the growing hysteria surrounding the former world No 1.
The 42-year-old’s share of second place in the Valspar Championship last weekend, in just his fourth full-blown tour event of 2018, has cranked up the excitement and expectation with the needle on the Tiger-mania-ometer now pinging into the red again.
Golf may not necessarily need Tiger Woods but, my goodness, he certainly helps it as his presence – and a relevant presence at that - allows the sport to claim a broader interest.
Attendances are up, television viewing figures are up, even his club head speeds are up with one fearsome swipe last week registering at 129.2 mph, the fastest on the tour this season.
If the Pied Piper was trying to earn a living today, he’d give a forlorn, resigned toot on his tootling thing and trudge straight off to the Job Centre.
Getting a sniff of winning is one thing. Getting over the line and actually winning is another. During his glory-laden pomp, of course, winning was all Woods knew and last weekend’s brush with a first victory since 2013 was almost a case of getting back in the old routine again.
Asked prior to today’s opening round if it felt the same to be in contention now as it did all those years ago, Woods responded with a simple, “it does”, before adding: “Once I got there, I thought I’d be all right.
“But getting to that point is a different story. From not knowing whether or not I will ever be able to play again to thinking I might be able to play at the tour level, to actually thinking I might be able to make a couple of cuts, to then saying well I might be able to get myself into a mix?
“There’s a process and an evolution to it and it’s been quick but I just have to enjoy all of this because, at one point, that wasn’t even a thought. I didn’t ever even think about playing out here again.”
There are plenty of other points that Woods has reached on this long road to recovery. “I have finally got to the point where my back is good enough where I can let my hands tell me what to do,” he said. “Playing baseball as a kid, you have to trust your hands. So that’s what I’ve done, I’ve trusted my hands again.
“My right arm and neck aren’t shaking because my back is out, my nerves are out and it’s inflamed, I don’t have those issues anymore. So I can trust my hands again.”
After his long-standing rival Phil Mickelson won the WGC-Mexico Championship recently to end a near five year barren run, the superstitious enthusiasts in the world of statistics have been working themselves into a frightful fankle this week.
Mickelson’s win ended a run of 1687 days without a victory. If Woods wins this Sunday, it would be, yes you’ve guessed it, 1687 days since his own last triumph. It’s a funny old game.
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