BLAND OF HOPE GLORY AND

The Benjamin Button of golf - who’s getting better at 49 - is ready for Major challenge

WOODS SCOT TO BE BEST FOR BOB

BY NEIL SQUIRES

TIGER WOODS will be the biggest draw at this week’s USPGA Championship – for his fellow competitors as well as the fans at Southern Hills.

Woods hesitated before committing to playing in the season’s second Major after completing a painful comeback from the car crash that left him with serious leg injuries at the Masters last month.

But his confirmed presence in Oklahoma makes him the hottest ticket in today’s draw.

Scot Bob Mcintyre had a near-miss in Augusta having played in the group ahead of Woods (below) in the third round and is dreaming of being paired with the 15-time Major champion.

“Tiger is the only man that I will be in awe of playing with but I want to play with him,” said Mcintyre (right). “Growing up he was the best I’ve ever seen. If I get the chance it’ll be something I’ll never forget.

“How do you prepare for it? I thought I was getting him at the Masters on Saturday. The hardest thing is the crowd. When he holes out they disappear, run everywhere.”

Having staked out the course where he won the 2007 USPGA a fortnight ago, Woods jetted into Tulsa on Sunday to begin his preparations in earnest.

After making the cut at the Masters he suffered his worst weekend at the tournament.

But he said:

“I’ve got a lot stronger since the

Masters – everything is better.”

RICHARD BLAND admits his head is in a whirl ahead of his US PGA Championship debut this week at the ripe old age of 49.

There may be no Phil Mickelson in Tulsa to defend his title but old gold is still represented in the field courtesy of the Englishman who became the oldest first-time winner in European Tour history last year at the British Masters.

He will add another lateblooming first with his tilt at the Wanamaker Trophy at Southern Hills on Thursday having qualified by breaking into the world’s top 100.

But the doors that are belatedly opening for Bland in the autumn of what had previously been a journeyman European Tour bring complications.

He said: “It’s hard to get a schedule and that’s something I’ve never had to deal with before because when you’re 250th in the world, it doesn’t matter. It’s a case of ‘this is where you’re going to play.’

“At the minute I’m sort of hanging around the world’s top 50. If I can be in the top 50 after the USPGA, I think there’s a possibility of playing at the Memorial, Jack Nicklaus’s tournament, which would

b e very, very special and then it’s top 60 after the PGA gets into the US Open.

“When you lose your card at the age of 46, a lot of people are writing you off and so to come back the way that I’ve come back, when I finish playing, whenever that will be, that will probably be something I’m most proud of.”

Bland still carries with him the congratulatory messages on his phone from his breakthrough win at the 478th time of asking 12 months ago from among others Stephen Fry (inset).

“The messages that I got from social media, from people all across the globe, that’s something that I wasn’t ready for, and it was quite emotional to read some of them,” he said.

“People that were losing faith in whatever journey they were on and my win sort of helped them to reevaluate and to keep going. ‘If he can do it, I can do it’. I hope they got there. If they haven’t, keep trying.”

The experiences have come thick and fast since with a weekend share of the lead at the US Open last year at Torrey Pines – he faded to 50th – and a Wgcmatch Play debut in March where he made it out of the group stages before going down to Dustin Johnson.

After the USPGA and The Open there is one more highlight to come – a July wedding to his Swedish fiancee Cate.