Is Tiger ready to pounce?

EVER since a fresh-faced teenager, name of Woods, turned professional in 1996 with that famous “Hello World” ad, that world has been occupied with the question ‘what will Tiger do next?’

Fifteen years and 14 major victories later, that question is as pertinent as ever as Woods has fallen to seventh in the world rankings and been winless for 507 days, just before his private life became very public and his image was tainted forever.

His career is seemingly at a crossroads, with a record 18 majors just over the hill in one direction and terminal decline down another, and the question is dividing opinion throughout golf as Woods attempts to find the right road with a new coach, a new swing, and prepares to attempt to win a fifth Masters title this week at Augusta National.

So far this year, there is little to cheer his advocates who believe one major will open the floodgates and see Nicklaus’ record fall. In four starts on the PGA Tour so far this year, on some of Tiger’s favourite tracks, there has been a T44 at Torrey Pines, a first-round exit at the WGC-Accenture Matchplay to Thomas Bjorn, a tie for 10th at Doral in the WGC-Cadillac Championship — his best result of 2011 —and a T24 in the Arnold Palmer Bay Hill Invitational.

“It’s a tough time for Tiger,” said former major champion turned acerbic television commentator Johnny Miller on the last day at Bay Hill. “When Tiger doesn’t do well at San Diego (Torrey Pines), Doral in Miami and Bay Hill you know things aren’t good.”

Yet Woods, who started working with renowned swing coach Sean Foley last August after splitting from Hank Haney, has shown flashes of his old brilliance and despite no win in 20 starts he could still finish the weekend back at number one if he were to win and his rivals in the rankings were to have a bad week.

“Tiger’s in the great position that if he turns up and plays well — and he is well capable of doing that — he will probably win,” Pádraig Harrington says. A lot of other players have to turn up, play well and probably get a few breaks on top.

“He mightn’t have the consistency of a run of winning, but up to now he has, what, 14 majors in 14 years. He has one major a year and he will probably keep to that record. And it’s not inconceivable that he will get hot again and have a year of 10 wins.

“If he gets a week when he holes a few putts, all of a sudden you talk about him being on top of the world again. He really isn’t that far away.

“Put it like this, there are very few players who wouldn’t want to be in his position going into the Masters. You’d go very far to find a player who wouldn’t swap his chances for their own chances.’’

Harrington would have more sympathy than most about the need to undergo swing changes, though even the ambitious Irishman has not done it four times in 15 years, as Woods is going through now and the great Arnold Palmer did not make one in 50 years. “I really did not make any swing changes in my career,” Palmer said during Bay Hill. “I started with a pattern when I started playing the tour, and I stuck with it until today.”

Harrington, though, understands Woods’ desire for change completely.

“If you went back to ‘97, there’s no way anybody could have driven the ball and played as well as he played in ‘97. Yes, he completely changed his swing and did he win more often? Yeah. Would he have won just as many with his ‘97 swing? Who knows?

‘‘But the problem was he couldn’t have stayed the same. He just couldn’t. He had to go and change and try and improve and that’s the way he is, and he’s very much that way at the moment — he’s in the process of changing, with a new coach and trying to improve and find understanding in his own game.

‘‘It’s a very high standard he has set himself and while he’s in that process, his performances will not have the consistency. But he will still have the high performances.”

Even Haney, who resigned as Tiger’s swing coach last May after more than six years in the job, is convinced his former pupil can come right just in time for the Masters. In a series of tweets from the @hankdhaney Twitter account, the coach opened up a question and answer session that inevitably turned towards Tiger after Haney backed him to win at Augusta.

Asked for his Masters favourite, Haney tweeted: “Tiger Woods, sooner or later his game will turn around, hasn’t putted well at Augusta in yrs he is due.”

Asked if he thought Woods was still on course to beat Nicklaus’s majors record, he replied: “yes but pace doesn’t guarantee anything, he needs one this year.”

Harrington agreed with Haney, saying: “I’ve been watching him and I fully believe that Tiger’s going to win plenty of tournaments. I still believe he’s going to get through that barrier of 18 tournaments.”

But what about the man himself? It’s difficult to tell what he really believes — he merely nodded with a smile when asked yesterday if he still believed he could beat Nicklaus — but he is still talking a good game.

Had we seen the best of Tiger Woods, he was asked.

“No. I believe in myself. There’s nothing wrong with believing in myself. God, I hope you guys feel the same way about yourselves. You know, that’s the whole idea, is that you can always become better.”