Tiger race to be fit for Masters

IT WOULD be hard to conceive of a more perfect warm-up tournament for the Masters for Tiger Woods than the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Florida this week. Talk about an event that ticks all the boxes.

A course he likes? Yes, you could say that — he has won the event eight times.

Decent weather? There i s no rain forecast for Orlando, with temperatures predicted to be in the high 20s.

And the tournament at Bay Hill is just a two-hour drive from Woods’s home.

So when Tiger (below) was confirmed as a no-show on Friday, with his agent Mark Steinberg revealing his back was still ‘sore and stiff’ following his appearance at the Genesis Invitational three weeks ago, it was hardly surprising that the US media went into overdrive.

At best, how ready he is going to be for his defence at Augusta in a little over a month’s time? At worst, is there more to this latest back ailment than we are being told?

‘ It’s the new normal,’ Steinberg told various US outlets. ‘Things are week to week. He’s very much good to go when he’s healthy, and he’s not when he’s a little sore.’

Who knows whether Tiger will be fit to play in the PGA Tour’s flagship event, the Players Championship, next week? The hope must surely be that he can at least play there, as well as the WGC Match Play Championship in Texas at the end of t he month, where he is guaranteed three group matches. In 10 events on the PGA Tour this year Woods has played just eight competitive rounds. At the Genesis tournament he hosted, Woods said that he would try to play 12 times a year. What is becoming clear is that his fused back will not allow him to play consecutive weeks anymore. He did equal the record of 82 PGA Tour wins in Japan last October after not playing for two months. But it was hardly the Masters, particularly this year’s edition, where the normal hoopla surrounding Woods will be ramped up as the holder of the green jacket. How do you handle all that and compete if you have hardly played? Meanwhile, the PGA Tour’s Florida swing began well at the Honda Classic for two former world No1s from England — Lee Westwood a nd Luke Donald. The pair were tied second at halfway at PGA National, one shot behind Brendan Steele. Donald, who shot 66 on Friday, won the Honda event way back in 2006 while Westwood’s golden winter goes on, following his victory in Abu Dhabi in January. Shane Lowry and Tommy Fleetwood were three back. Justin Rose and Matt Wallace missed the cut.