Like him or loathe him, golf needs Tiger in full swing
Woods fought every inch of the way only to be outscored by Englishman Robert Rock and our own Rory McIlroy.
It was hardly a surprise that the oil-rich sheikhs felt their expenditure had been worthwhile.
Whether you like him, loathe him or are largely indifferent, there is no denying golf hasn’t been the same without Tiger’s presence. And if what we saw during his victory in the Chevron World Challenge in December and in the Gulf is anything to go by, he will be right up there over the next 12 months and beyond. Having been out of the top 50 in the world not so very long ago, he is now up to 17th.
Meanwhile, McIlroy hardly knows what it means to be out of the top five when he tees it up. These are his finishing positions since the beginning of last September: Third, KLM Dutch Open; 11th, Dunhill Links; First, Lake Malaren Shanghai Masters; Fourth, WGC HSBC World Championship; First, Hong Kong Open; 11th, Dubai World Championship and now second, Abu Dhabi Championship.
Quite predictably, Rory has returned to number two in the world rankings in a straight swap with Lee Westwood. And if he can maintain that level of consistency, it can only be a matter of time before he takes over the top spot from Luke Donald.
The Abu Dhabi championship was a huge success. They do things right in that part of the world and even though Donald, Woods and McIlroy are notable absentees, much of the same can be expected when the Qatar Masters gets underway on Thursday.
The on-form Thomas Bjorn defends his title from a field that includes young Australian Jason Day, leading American Hunter Mahan, Spain’s Sergio Garcia, Korea’s KJ Choi and of course Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer.
Graeme McDowell, who turned in a fabulous back nine in Abu Dhabi, has improved two places to 11th in the world. He leads an Irish challenge completed by Michael Hoey, Shane Lowry, Peter Lawrie, Damien McGrane and Paul McGinley.
It will be a big week for McGinley who has been hard hit by a series of knee injuries recently. He still qualifies for these events on the strength of his career earnings and is keen to compete in as many as possible to maintain an active profile in his bid to captain the 2014 European Ryder Cup team, just as Jose-Maria Olazabal is doing in the build-up to this year’s clash with the Americans in Chicago.
The Spaniard must be happy at the way his team is panning out. The current top 10 who will eventually claim automatic places are McIlroy, Kaymer, Gonzalo Fernandez Castano, Alvaro Quiros, Sergio Garcia, Donald, Westwood, Justin Rose, Simon Dyson and McDowell.
That’s a formidable group by any standards and yet it only contains five of the 2010 team.
The coming months will see the Molinari brothers, Francesco and Edoardo, Miguel-Angel Jimenez, Ian Poulter, Peter Hanson, Padraig Harrington and Ross Fisher join the hunt. Thomas Bjorn and the currently injured Paul Casey will surely come into the reckoning while Matteo Manassero and Tom Lewis have the kind of youthful flair that can do for any Ryder Cup side what Ricky Fowler achieved for the Americans in Wales in 2010.
It would seem a strange European team without Harrington, an ever-present since Brookline in 1999, even if he is today 90th in the world rankings. He and Woods return to competitive action in the AT & T Pro-Am on Thursday week.
