Defiant Tiger Woods aiming to claw his way back to the top

Like most touring professionals, the world number 195 has an ambition to scale the heights in career terms and reach the pinnacle of his sport.

Unlike all but a handful, this world number 195 has already been there for quite some time, won 14 major championships in the process and would quite like to regain what he believes is his rightful position in a game which has heralded him as its greatest exponent.

We are talking about Tiger Woods by the way and in a season that began with a new swing coach in Chris Como that has seen him rebuild his game for the fifth time since turning pro there have been some new lows in a once glittering career. Some exceptionally bad play, a terrible short game, a back injury that forced him to lie low for two months and a worst ever professional round of 85 at the Memorial in his last appearance two weeks ago may point to a game in inexorable decline, but six months short of his 40th birthday, Woods is still convinced he has what it takes to reclaim his dominance.

And using a baseball analogy he explained that he is prepared for the long haul in reaching that goal.

“The manager is not going to come out to the mound and bring in the righty or lefty (pitcher),” the former number one said. “You’ve got to stick out there and go through all nine innings. And whether you get shelled or not, you’ve got to stay out there. And it’s hard. But that’s the nature of our sport. There’s nobody to pull you up. There’s no way one to bail you out.

“Sometimes when you’re running hot, there’s no one to hold you back, either. That’s the beauty of an individual sport and also sometimes the tough part of an individual sport.” Woods is sufficiently optimistic about the progress he is making under Como, whom he hired last November after parting company with four-year predecessor Sean Foley in August, to see discernible differences between his horror round at Memorial with the 82 he shot at Phoenix on the way to a missed cut at the Waste Management Open in February. Both a part of that long haul back, he believes.

“Early in the year, we were just now starting to implement some of the things. And, yeah, the full swing was what it was. The chipping, I didn’t realise some of the patterning that I had developed over the years, under Sean, that we were trying to change. And it kind of showed its ugly head, unfortunately. And I had to go back to the grindstone and work it and implement basically a whole new pattern.

“At Memorial, I made another baseline shift, just like I did pre-Masters. And it’s rough going through it. Obviously I’ve got to do it in front of the world, and sometimes it’s tough. I’ve got to suck it up and do it.

“The good news is I’ve done it before in my career, I know what it feels like, I know how tough it is to go through those rounds. But for me, I was very proud how I grinded out those first two days to make the cut at Memorial. And I decided to make another shift at it and obviously shot a high number. But it was a shift in a good way, because now I’m able to hit the ball like I am this week.” After what he described as short-term suffering for long-term gain, Woods believes it is now just a question of fine tuning in tournament conditions as he heads into the ultimate in grinding experiences at a US Open this week.

“Things are starting to come together piece by piece. And just all the big change is already in and now it’s just refining it and actually now playing more golf, playing more tournament golf. Because I haven’t played that much early in the year. And now throughout the summer, I’ve got a very full summer schedule. It would be nice to get back into the realm of playing tournament golf again.”

Winning a fourth US Open title this week and breaking a seven-year majors drought would constitute a giant leap forward. Not many believe he can but crucially one of them is Tiger Woods.

What makes him believe he can get it done this week?

“I’ve got three of these,” he said.