Eagle-eyed Tiger swoops to victory

Tiger Woods scoffed at the notion of an unseen hand guiding his remarkable exploits after he had captured the Deutsche Bank TPC Open for a second time in three years here at St Leon-Rot yesterday.

"I hit a lot of golf balls, trust me, and not many of them go in," said the world number one, as observers marvelled at his latest magic.

With rounds of 69, 68, 63, 66 for a 22-under-par aggregate of 266, Woods plundered £278,024 from tournament coffers on this side of the Atlantic. But he then showed little enthusiasm about becoming a member of the European Tour, which would virtually guarantee him leadership of the money lists here and in the US.

Meanwhile, three of the five Irish survivors finished in the top 24, with Padraig Harrington leading them home in a share of fifth position. A reward of £59,719 has lifted him from fourth to third in the Order of Merit and he has moved from fourth to second in the Ryder Cup points table, where only Sweden's Pierre Fulke is ahead of him.

Paul McGinley, who claimed a share of 10th place here, remains 11th in the Order of Merit but he, too, has made valuable progress in the battle for Ryder Cup honours against the US at The Belfry in September.

Going into this week's Volvo PGA Championship, McGinley had gone ahead of Jose-Maria Olazabal into seventh place in the table.

Regarding Woods and the European Tour: as things stand, he needs to commit to only one more tournament for membership in Category One, where he qualifies as the holder of major championships.

"I don't know," he said. "It's a lot to ask to try and play. Let's say one year I don't want to play as many tournaments. Who knows?"

That, at least, will be some comfort to his shell-shocked rivals in Europe. It is worth noting that Woods was actually 10 strokes behind Michael Campbell at the halfway stage and had drawn level with him by Saturday evening.

Acknowledging the importance of a blistering third-round 63 on Saturday, Woods said: "Michael could have given us a chance or blown us all away. Obviously he struggled a little (with a third-round 73). Yesterday was a very key day."

Indeed it was. It meant that Woods was level with Campbell and only a stroke behind Eduardo Romero - hardly the sort of situation likely to reduce the American to a state of panic. Indeed he had been much more concerned overnight about the loss of his driver.

The problem arose on the practice ground on Saturday evening, when the shaft snapped at the hosel. "The last time that happened to me was in the AT&T Pro-Am at Poppy Hills last year," he said. "But I went on to win that week and now I've done it again."

As things turned out, a replacement shaft was located here in Germany but it seems that when the technician was fitting it, he damaged the clubhead in a vice. So Woods borrowed a replacement driver from Australian Adam Scott, who uses the same implement.

"Our swings look alike and we have the same specs (specifications)," explained Woods. "The only difference is that this driver is the newer version, but it's virtually the same club that I had."

Whatever its properties, it delivered a stunning message on the opening hole of the final round. On reaching the green in two, Woods holed an 18-foot putt for an eagle. This was his fourth eagle of the tournament and there was to be another before the end of the round.

It came at the par-four 13th where he holed a 175-yard seven-iron approach shot to open up what proved to be a winning two-stroke lead on Campbell. Prior to that, the New Zealander had kept in touch, indeed had led the tournament after a birdie on the fourth and again after another birdie on the eighth. Perhaps the most interesting observation from Woods, however, was his explanation of how a 25-foot birdie putt found the target on the long 11th. "The funny thing is that for some reason, I just saw the line of that putt," said the player who is an acknowledged master of reading greens. "I didn't read it as much as I would normally."

He went on: "These greens have a lot of waves in them and you can get confused by going back and forth analysing them too much. I decided just to trust my feel and when I saw it break six to eight inches and I hit it and it went into the hole.

"A lot of times it's luck, but you need to trust your instincts and for some reason I had a wonderful feeling about that particular one."

An unseen hand? Perhaps not. But in claiming his 35th tournament victory world-wide as a professional, Woods still left us wondering.