BACK IN SWING
GOLF: THE MASTERS 2018 Tiger’s a walking miracle
TIGER WOODS is relishing being the star of the show again as he targets one of the greatest comebacks of all time.
The former world No.1 has never been far from the limelight since he took the golfing world by storm in 1997 when he won the first of his four Green Jackets by a stunning 12 shots.
He went on to dominate the sport and achieved iconic status as he became one of the richest sportsmen on the planet.
His fall from grace, which started with confessions of serial infidelity and was followed by career-threatening back problems and an arrest for drinkdriving, left him a broken man.
Just 12 months ago Woods was unable to get out of bed, let alone swing a golf club, and his darkest hour came in May when police found him asleep at the wheel of his car.
Toxicology reports revealed he had five different drugs in his system and dashcam footage of him dishevelled and unable to walk in a straight line went viral.
One of the most famous sportsmen ever was struggling to cope with what most people regarded as the pitiful end of a remarkable career.
But somehow he has battled back from the abyss.
A spinal fusion operation less than a year ago saved him and tomorrow he will strut his stuff around Augusta once again looking to win his fifth Masters and write a genuine sporting fairy tale.
Woods admits his health was so bad at one point that he couldn’t walk to the bathroom without collapsing.
Now he is on a mission to inflict some pain on his rivals but has urged the excited masses to be patient – because miracles take time to create.
The American, who will play with Tommy Fleetwood and Marc Leishman in the opening rounds, said: “My back was fried. I was trying anything to take away the pain.
“Nothing worked, my disc was gone. So given how I feel now versus then, I mean, it’s night and day.
“We want to compete. We want to get out there and mix it up and part of being an athlete is dealing with pain.
“Unfortunately we’re pushing the boundaries of our bodies and minds and a lot of times we go over the edge and we break down.
“But thank God there’s modern science to fix us and put us back together again. I’ll be honest with you, it is crazy.
“I thought prior to the fusion surgery that that’s pretty much it. That I’ll have a nice, comfortable life but I’ll never be able to swing the club like I used to. I’m really excited to be back. I have four rounds to play, so let’s just kind of slow down!
“But I feel great, I feel like I’ve really put a lot of pieces together. I feel fantastic and now it’s just a matter of going out there and competing and playing and posting numbers.”
To put his return to Augusta into perspective, Woods has not won the Masters since 2005 and his last win of any description was in 2013.
Before returning to competitive golf in December he had plummeted to 1,199th in the world rankings.
In recent years he had to endure the torture of coming to this famous golf course without his clubs and just to attend the champions dinner.
Contemplating the end was hard to swallow but after an absence of almost 1,100 days from America’s most famous tournament, he is poised to tee it up again and roll back the years.
He is not a sentimental outsider either. He’s a genuine favourite to win and not just someone turning up for the fun of it.
The 14-time Major champion, whose other wins here came in 2001 and 2002, added: “It’s been a tough road.
“The pain of just sitting there and the amount of times that I’ve fallen because my leg didn’t work or I just had to lay on the ground for extended periods of times.
“Those are some really dark, dark times.
“The reason why I say I’m a walking miracle is that I don’t know if anyone who has had a lower back fusion can swing the club as fast as I can.
“That’s incredible. That’s why I say that it is a miracle.
“I went from a person who really had a hard time getting up, walking around, sitting down, anything, to swinging the club again now.
“That is a miracle, isn’t it?”