Eye of the Tiger finding focus again

Philip Reid reckons Tiger Woods is nearly back to his lethal best, and a mindful Padraig Harrington agrees

For much of the spring, and on into the summer, and now, extending into the autumn, Tiger Woods has been a bit like a farmer experiencing a drought. It's been a barren spell, with not a single title claimed since he took the Accenture matchplay back in February. Almost six months without a tournament win? And yet . . .

Woods is still the world's number one.

In fact, Woods has occupied the top spot in the world rankings for 331 successive weeks. That's five years, exactly. And if he hasn't won a major in his last nine championships - a time that has seen nine different winners in nine different majors - there's still an aura about him that makes others keep a wary watch on what he's doing.

As Padraig Harrington put it yesterday, "I got to see some of the Buick Classic on TV a couple of weeks ago and, you know, Tiger looked like he's right back where he was a few years ago. He really looked on top form, he really looks like he could be coming back to his dominant self. Will he ever be as dominant? I think a lot of players have caught up . . . he could have runs of a couple of months and things, but in 2000 he was way ahead and, even if he got back to playing as he played then, I think the players have closed the gap. There's a lot of other players who are capable of competing with him."

Nobody needs to tell Woods. The proof is his failure to add to his major haul since he won the US Open at Bethpage in 2002 - his eighth major win - but Woods was insistent yesterday, in the run-up to the season's final major at Whistling Straits, that things would turn again. "You've just got to keep grinding and keep working at it and give yourself a lot of opportunities," he said.

"If I had not given myself a chance through those major championships, and had I not felt like I should have won, then I would be bothered a lot more than I am. I feel like I probably should have won the last two (British) Open Championships and I was right there with a chance at Royal St Georges (last year). I bogeyed two of the last four holes and missed a play-off by two with a lost ball on the first hole on the first day.

"Then, at this year's Open, I thought I was playing well enough and I made one birdie in 36 holes on the back nine . . . I just didn't make any birdies."

Certainly, the signs of recent weeks are that Woods is playing with more rhythm and more confidence than he has been for months and some of that has to do with using a graphite-shafted driver, rather than a steel one.

"I feel very comfortable and confident with it. I'm finally able to get the ball out of my shadow and get it out there, to keep up with the big boys," he said. And the driver will be in his hands on a lot of occasions over the next four days of the championship.

"As far as putting the ball in play this week is concerned, it is imperative. If the wind blows like this, I don't think I've played a golf course this difficult. That's if the wind blows. If the wind doesn't blow, guys will shoot good scores . . . if you hit a marginal shot, not just a bad golf shot, a marginal shot and you get a bad bounce there's the possibility of making double bogey."

Yet, the sense is that Woods, like of old, is relishing the challenge ahead. It would seem the tougher it is, the more he'll like it.