Fit Tiger Woods ready to roar

Orlando (USA): With 14-time Major champion Tiger Woods making a return to active play for the first time since a long-running back injury saw him miss the cut at the PGA Championships at Valahalla back in August, the eyes of the golfing world are on the Isleworth Golf and Country Club here at Orlando, where the Hero World Challenge tees off on Thursday.

And on Tuesday, the 39-year-old lost no time in making a statement of intent.“It’s going to be nice playing a tournament this week and getting a feel for being under the heat and see where my swing is, see what shots where my misses are; not necessarily my good ones.I know my good ones are good. But where are the misses are going to be? “Am I able to rectify them right away, or is it going to take a shot or two, or a hole or two? Or maybe I might not be able to do it at all and that might not be a good thing. But I think I have a good understanding going into Thursday what I need to do to hit certain shots and see what happens.”

Woods, who has also signed up with Hero Motorcorp over a four-year period that also makes the Indian corporate house title sponsor of his invitation tournament, said he had hopefully learnt from rushing his comeback earlier this year.“I just hit a driver for the first time the Thursday before I committed. I committed the very next day. I was going to — well, this is how I put it: I was going to hit less drivers in a tournament round than I would in practice, so I might as well give it a go, and I did,” Woods said.

“And unfortunately, I wasn’t ready. I didn’t play very well, and it showed. It reflected. My scores were awful. Missed the cut there and I played poorly at the British. Played poorly at Akron and played poorly at the PGA. Nothing was very good. “So having the next few months off, being able to get my body stronger, but also trying to really understand where I want to go with my golf swing. And having an old motor pattern that I know has made the transition so much easier,” he added.

“I’m past the rehab portion of it (his injury), and now I’m in the strength development of it, and I don’t have to do those tedious little rehab exercises.  I can basically play with my kids and do whatever I want.  We’ve been playing a ton of soccer in the backyard just about every day,” Woods added on his injury.

The new, or revived swing he is now working on with new coach Chris Como was the topic of much discussion. What he was trying to do, Woods explained, was in essence examine what had given him so much power and distance as a junior – with a much lighter frame physically. And there was no clear answer as to if this was a new swing. “Well, it is new, but it’s old. I haven’t done it in a very long time.  We went back to some of those old videos,” he said.