Woods still reigns as golf’s main attraction

But Masters scrutiny awaits

They paraded through the Masters interview room Tuesday morning with their amusing stories and self- deprecating smiles — Henrik Stenson, Adam Scott, even the defending champ, Bubba Watson — contenders every one.

Then in walked the 111thranked player in the world, down seven spots from a week ago, a man who hasn’t won a major tournament in nearly seven years, and just like that, a hundred halfstarted stories were tossed, or filed away for future use.

Tiger Woods spoke, and you couldn’t not listen. He was there, and you couldn’t not look.

“I feel like my game is finally ready to compete at this level, the highest level, and I’m excited to be here,” he said.

Who would swallow that whole, knowing how he has deceived himself in the past? Hadn’t he solved his chipping woes and rediscovered long- lost driving distance before going out and shooting 82 in Phoenix?

Hadn’t he come into Torrey Pines outwardly brimming with confidence until he played 11 holes like a high handicapper and limped off with a suspicious back injury before going underground for two months of what he now says was intensive game repair?

“I worked my ass off. That’s the easiest way to describe it,” he said Tuesday.

“People would never understand how much work I put in to come back and do this again. But it was sunup to sundown, and whenever I had free time; if the kids were asleep, I’d still be doing it, and then when they were in school, I’d still be doing it. So it was a lot of work.”

Will it pay off this week? ESPN, which carries the first two rounds, may not care, but CBS surely does.

But whether he is here in Augusta for two rounds or four, whether his game is cured of what ailed it so shockingly in his last three starts or whether his new- found bravado deserts him at the first setback, Woods’ status as the game’s main attraction hasn’t gone away.

Only a devoted contrarian would put him among the top 10 likely winners of this season’s first major, yet you ignore him at your peril, the same way reading too much into Phil Mickelson’s tepid Tour performances the past couple of seasons is dangerous when the venue is Augusta National.

Tiger is back and he means to show that his game is ready for examination. That’s good, because it will get it.

“It would come in flashes,” he said of his two- month boot camp of non- stop golf practice.

“I would get in these modes where it would come for 10 minutes and I would be just dialed in, and then I’d lose it for an hour, and then I’d get it back. And next thing you know, I’d flip to having it for an hour to 10 minutes of losing it, and then it got to a point where it was just there.” But where exactly is “there?” The early returns are mixed. He has hit dozens and dozens of pitch shots and chips and putts here, and played practice rounds late Monday and early Tuesday with his first Tour mentor, Mark O’Meara. His game has been just average, but for him, lately, that’s probably encouraging.

Encouraging to everyone else has been his demeanour. Smiling, dancing to the hip- hop playing in his earbuds as he practised Monday, committed to playing Wednesday’s Par- 3 contest for the first time in 11 years with his son Charlie and daughter Sam set to take turns caddying — it’s

No, competing is still the same. I’m trying to beat everybody out there. That hasn’t changed.

TIGER WOODS

either an elaborate act, or Woods is genuinely loosening up, at least a little.

Maybe he’s just mellowing with age.

“I’m feeling older, there’s no doubt about that,” he said. “Try chasing around six- and seven year-olds all day, you start feeling it. But the good news is my soccer game has got a lot better.” But seriously ... “No, competing is still the same. I’m trying to beat everybody out there. That hasn’t changed,” he said.

“The only difference is that, yeah, I won the Masters when Jordan ( Spieth) was still in diapers. A whole other generation of kids are coming out. And the game has got bigger.

“When I won my first golf tournament on Tour, I beat Davis Love in a playoff with a Persimmon driver. A 7,100- yard golf course is extremely short — before, it was long?”

He stopped just short of saying he walked five miles to school and back every day when he was a kid, uphill both ways.

But the reminders of career mortality are everywhere.

This is Tiger Woods’ 20th Masters. It hardly seems possible.

“I’m only 30 behind Gary ( Player),” he said.

“One ahead in green jackets, though,” someone said.

“One ahead in the green jackets, that’s right,” Woods smiled.

Wherever else his mind may have been in recent years, he hasn’t lost count.