Warning signs aplenty as revived Tiger on the prowl again

Tiger Woods, fist pump and all, is back with a vengeance after his thrilling fifth victory in the Jack Nicklaus Memorial tournament in Ohio.

The decisive chip-in from the rough at the 16th was Woods at his best and the victory, two weeks before the US Open, is an ominous warning to defending champion Rory McIlroy and the other contenders that he is back in business.

Woods jumped to fourth in the world rankings behind Luke Donald, McIlroy, Lee Westwood and ahead of Bubba Watson, Matt Kuchar, Justin Rose, Hunter Mahan, Jason Dufner and Martin Kaymer.

In contrast, McIlroy looked a confused young man after his third successive “two-day week” in the Memorial. He has moved on to Memphis, Tennessee, for this week’s FedEx St Jude Classic after missing the cut in the Players Championship, the BMW PGA Championship and the Memorial in successive weeks — hardly the sort of form required for a successful US Open defence.

For reasons best known to himself, McIlroy didn’t play for three weeks before the Masters and for three weeks afterwards. He now accepts that this was a mistake and that he needs to compete on a regular basis. His failure in the Players and the PGA was followed by some dreadful errors over the two days at the Memorial as he ran up a quadruple bogey seven at a par three in the first round and a double bogey seven at a par five in the second.

He desperately needs to play all four days in Memphis to build himself up for San Francisco’s tricky Olympic layout.

He won’t be helped by the suffocating heat in Memphis, a factor that also applies to the two other Irish in the field — Graeme McDowell and Pádraig Harrington.

McDowell’s form has been patchy at best. He reached the Volvo World Match Play Championship final in Spain a fortnight ago but was unimpressive in defeat to Nicolas Colsaerts while missing the cut in the PGA a week later was another blow to his confidence.

Nobody talks a more positive game than Harrington but now is the time he matched words with deeds on the golf course. He is now only four places away from exiting the top 100 in the world rankings.

Also in the Memphis field is the tall Swede, Robert Karlsson, who hopes it will be a case of third time lucky, having lost in a play-off in each of the last two years to Lee Westwood and Harrison Frazar. Surprisingly, however, Westwood has decided to remain in Europe and contest the relatively low key €1.5m Nordea Scandinavian Masters in Stockholm rather than re-acclimatise himself with American conditions the week before the US Open. And in a move similarly difficult to comprehend, Sergio Garcia is returning to Europe from the States to play in Scandinavia. The field there also includes Michael Hoey, Shane Lowry, Gareth Maybin, Damien McGrane and Simon Thornton.

Peter Lawrie, richer by another €50,243 after tying for eighth in Wales at the weekend, takes the week off before playing the US Open for the first time. He is now 35th in the Race to Dubai with €340,054 and moves to 136th in the world rankings. Paul McGinley banked a tidy €72,680 for his share of sixth in Wales and he has jumped to 64th in the Race to Dubai with €183,583.