Golf: New Tiger eyes return of form

As he eased himself smoothly through another pre-Augusta media inquisition, a thought of potentially seismic sporting proportions, occurred.

Are we about to see Part 2 of the whole phenomenal Tiger Woods story?

Just about everything Woods said at Augusta, prior to tomorrow's first round of the Masters, was about the future. And for sure, this was a wholly more comfortable, less chastened, more positive Woods than the hounded man who stared down the penetrating camera lights 12 months ago here and tried to pretend that the implosion of his private life would have no effect upon his public performances.

It was always going to and it did.

But what we saw this week was a new Woods. A new swing, new stance, new body position, new grip. New in other ways, too. He is not favourite this week and at 7th, he's so far down the current world golf rankings that you can hardly see him.

But that, you tend to think, probably suits him perfectly. Judging by the calm manner with which he handled all his inquisitors, Woods looked so much more at ease with himself. And that could spell danger for reigning champion Phil Mickelson and all the other pretenders to this most desired of crowns.

"Last year was last year and this year is this year" he said. "My main focus is to get ready and be prepared and my whole idea is to try to win the tournament. I've prepared all year to peak four times a year and that has not changed."

But what has changed is Woods' whole technical approach and he brings it to the task of finding five more major wins, which would see him burst past Jack Nicklaus's career record of 18.

Yet he expressed surprise, both at the extent of the changes required to his own technical make-up and the fact that it hasn't yet produced tangible rewards. "I didn't think I would have to make a complete swing change, lose coaches and move on to another one. It takes a while for it to be laid down.

"And yes, I am surprised I haven't been able to build on...the changes...in terms of a success. Certainly."

But he had no choice. For Woods revealed that as far back as 1997, he was suffering physical pain from his golf swing, even as he collected major titles like apples from an orchard.

He refused to accept he could win consistently with the 1997 version of his swing simply because it was causing him too much pain. "My knee was killing me then. That was a very difficult swing on me physically. That's why I knew I had to change it. It took a pretty good pounding on my knee doing it that way. As you know, I tore my cartilage and my ACL over the years so I don't want to swing that way. It is too much pain.

"I won here in 1997 thinking that was a great week, but I can't repeat this. That swing I had would not put me in contention each and every week and I needed to change that.

"So a couple of years later, I changed it and had a nice little run of years. The same thing...now. I felt that I could go to another level (if I made technical changes).

"And we've changed a lot, from stance to grip, to where the club is, where the club needs to be throughout the entire golf swing, and obviously what the body is doing. That is way different to what I used to do.

"But that's been a difficult change. The grip part I got pretty quickly, the posture I got pretty quickly, too. The other stuff has been more difficult."

But if the technique has altered, what is between his ears in terms of desire to achieve and succeed, has not. Have we seen the best of Tiger Woods, he was asked?

He fixed his questionnaire one of those steely Woods stares. A single word sufficed. "No".

And he followed it with a statement rich in self belief. "Well, I believe in myself. There's nothing wrong with believing in myself. God, I hope you guys feel the same way about yourselves. You know, that's the whole idea...that you can always become better."

The bookmakers, those wise owls of the course, do not believe Tiger Woods will win this week. They make Mickelson the favourite. But no-one has won back-to-back Masters titles since Woods in 2001 and 2002. Before that, Nick Faldo did it in 1989 and 1990.

Could Mickelson do it? Yes, it's certainly possible. But even 'Big Lefty' might just have concerns that if, come Sunday afternoon and the final back nine holes, a bloke named Woods is anywhere near on the leader board, his own grand designs might fall apart.

A re-designed Woods spells danger for all opponents.