Woods travels in prime form

Tiger Woods will set off for Germany today and the defence of the Deutsche Bank Open title in Hamburg later this week having had a crucial coaching session with Butch Harmon. They met last Saturday morning at the halfway stage of the Byron Nelson Classic in Irving Texas.

"Looking at TV, he wasn't pleased with the way he had seen me swinging on the first two days," said Woods yesterday. "So, he wanted to make sure that we sorted everything out before I went to Germany. "He was worried that if I set off without seeing him, it would take me three weeks to a month to sort out all the flaws in my game." Harmon also had a eye on next month's US Open at Pebble Beach.

"Having done the work last weekend, it now becomes only a matter of fine-tuning," Woods added. "And I'll be ready to work on a few things when I get to Germany." It may be helpful to remind ourselves that this is a player who has won 24 professional tournaments in 75 starts, including three this year, pushing his career earnings to more than $14.7 million. All in less than four years as a professional.

Yet he admitted yesterday: "Butch and I have been together for six years and he could see that my game had got a little sloppy."

He made the comments from the Isleworth club in Florida, during a telephone link-up with Valhalla GC in Louisville, Kentucky, where he will be defending the USPGA Championship in August. And among the observations he made on the last "major" of the season was that he wouldn't mind if it changed back to being a matchplay event.

But he added: "The only problem is that the sponsors and TV would want to see marquee names in the final. And you can't be sure of that in matchplay."

Woods also had a piece of advice for Lee Westwood - pace yourself. Westwood, down from fifth to 11th in the world this year, sounded in despair at the Belfry at the weekend.

The 27-year-old from Worksop said he was struggling for motivation, was miserable on the course and did not know how to fix his current swing problems.

In response, Woods said of maintaining his enthusiasm: "I think that if you pace yourself you will find that it's not that hard to do. If you keep your priorities intact I don't think you have a problem."

In capturing the Deutsche Bank Open in Heidelberg last year, Woods broke 70 in each of the four rounds, shooting 69, 68, 68, 68 for 15-under-par aggregate of 273 and a three-stoke margin over Retief Goosen. Now he is going to a different venue, the Gut Kaden course in Hamburg. Meanwhile, 24 hours after his meeting with Harmon, the world number one almost brought off the greatest comeback of his career at Las Colinas last Sunday. But a final round of 63 in the Byron Nelson Classic succeeded eventually in getting him only a share of fourth place behind Jesper Parnevik. The 35-year-old Swede captured the title - his fourth in the US and second of the year - and a cheque for $720,000 by beating Davis Love and Phil Mickelson in a play-off. It was a bitter setback for Love, who has now gone 47 tournaments without a win since taking the MCI Classic at Hilton Head in April 1998.

Even more crushing from Love's standpoint was that it proved to be his sixth loss in seven play-offs, and it was his seventh time to be runner-up over the last two years. And after Mickelson was eliminated at the second tie hole, Parnevik needed no more than a two-putt par to secure the title, after Love had twice been in rough.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Parnevik's triumph was that he did it despite missing a putt of no more than a foot at the 12th hole, where he was putting into his own shadow. But the overall quality of his play was such that he still shot a final round of 66 to get into a play-off on 11 under par.

Victory has lifted the Swede to third in the US money list with tournament earnings of $2,135,700. More importantly in terms of his long-term ambitions, however, is that he has now moved from 12th to seventh in the world rankings - the highest position of his career. And he did it all in a pair of outrageous, pink slacks, the like of which has not been seen in tournament golf since the days of Doug Sanders.

Woods was seven strokes back of Love entering the final round. And he then produced the lowest final round of his professional career. But his chance of victory disappeared when a 15-foot birdie putt on the last caught the left edge of the hole.

"I knew if I could make that putt, it might make things interesting," he said with a smile.