Tiger Woods in the mood for more heroics

The performances of Tiger Woods in the press conferences he gives on the eve of major championships rarely vary, whether he is in the United States or Britain. He always says that he believes he can win and that he has prepared well, and he acknowledges his rival golfers gracefully but without giving them a scintilla more respect than they deserve.
From time to time he flashes that wide smile of his, the one that looks as though it could light up a darkened room. He is quietly composed, assured in himself, seemingly incapable of a verbal stumble. From top to toe, he is the warrior prepared for battle.
And so it was at Augusta yesterday before the Masters, starting tomorrow, the first major championship in which he has competed since winning the US Open in June. In April last year, two months before he had surgery on his left knee to mend an anterior cruciate ligament, he had said that he thought it was “easily within reason” that he would win all four major championships in one year.
Asked yesterday if he thought it was on for this year, he replied: “I know I can do it. It’s hard for me to sit here and tell you that it can’t be done because I have done it.” [Woods won four consecutive major championships in 2000 and 2001, rather than in one calendar year.]
For all the talk of Padraig Harrington’s chances of winning a third major championship in a row, of the youthful promise of Rory McIlroy, Danny Lee and Ryo Ishikawa, three teenagers who are playing in this event for the first time, and of Greg Norman’s first appearance at this event since 2002, the fact is that Woods is the firm favourite to win a fifth Green Jacket and claim a fifteenth major championship.
He will launch his bid in the company of Stewart Cink, his fellow American, and Jeev Milkha Singh, of India, in the penultimate group. Immediately behind Woods, and his inevitable huge gallery, will be McIlroy and Ishikawa, alongside another talented youngster, Anthony Kim, of the US.
So compelling was Woods’s form and so remarkable was the way he won the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill ten days ago that he is 2-1 to win here. He sounded satisfied with his golf, even though he said he was “not in it at Doral”, his first strokeplay event back, the CA Championship, in early March. “I was on the periphery there,” he said. “I played my way into a back-door top ten. This past week it was different. That was great. To be able to control the flight of a seven-iron and to see how well my body reacted.”
His behaviour yesterday was that of a man whose mind is set on the next few days and not interested in the past few months. It was as if the knee injury had not occurred. There was no mention of the hours spent doing rehabilitation, only a few of the times when he felt depressed, and only one of the times when he was uncertain how well his injured knee would recover. “I was surprised at how quickly I got the feeling of being back,” Woods said. “It came back to me at the Match Play [in February, his first event since his operation]. Stevie [Williams, his caddie] said: ‘It’s just like we haven’t left. It feels the same.’ Coming here feels just like any other major.”
This week Woods has not been able to have his favoured early-morning practice rounds. On Monday, rainstorms prevented him from playing and yesterday a 25mph wind was blowing.
And this brought him to the single biggest doubt in his mind. It was not about the form of any of his rivals. Even Woods did not know whether the course would be as firm and unyielding as it had been in 2008 or whether it would be as cold and wet as it had been in 2007. This was the question he was thinking most about on the eve of his 47th major championship as a professional. Even Woods has no control over the weather.
Source:the times