Is Tiger back and ready to pounce?

A FEW weeks back when Tiger Woods missed the cut at the Genesis Open on the PGA tour, I, like many others, thought that he was just making up the numbers and that his best days were behind him, following a number of years blighted by injuries and off the course controversaries.

However, his form in recent weeks would suggest otherwise and following that missed cut, he has finished 12th at the Honda Classic and second last weekend at the Valspar Championship where he actually had a putt to force a play-off with Paul Casey.

Should he win this weekend at Bay Hill or at a future event (possibly the Masters?) it would represent one of the greatest sporting comebacks of all-time and almost on a par with that of Ben Hogan who came back from a car crash in 1949 that almost cost him his life.

Doctors said that Hogan would never walk again after his car was in a head-on collision with a Greyhound bus, but he defied all odds to come back and win the US Open just twelve months after the near-fatal crash, adding another five majors in the next four years just for good measure.

Tiger’s injuries were not, of course, life-threatening but possibly career-threatening, and the much-publicised problems with his private life led many to believe that we’d seen the last of this amazing athlete who appeared to be spiralling out of control. Woods, however, is made of tough stuff and he has managed to get himself fit and get his golf game in such shape that it might now be a case of when he will win again and not if.

Golf needs Tiger Woods right now and if the crowds at the Valspar Championship last weekend are anything to go by, then he’s still the biggest draw around.

His odds for the Masters have been slashed to just 10/1 and it would be a fairy-tale ending were he to wait until Augusta to win again.

Meanwhile, as Tiger gets better by the week, former world No.1 Rory McIlroy seems to be going in the opposite direction. The Northern Ireland man has missed the cut twice in his last four events and finished tied for 20th and tied for 59th in the other two, after a great start to 2018 where he finished second and third in the two events that he played on the European tour.

Something is not quite right with McIlroy at present but it’s surely just a matter of time before he sorts it out and starts to climb the world rankings again where he currently sits in 13th place.

Finally, it was great to see Paul Casey winning again on the PGA tour after a nine year wait, and it augers well for the European Ryder Cup team.