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Tiger
Woods returned to competition at last week’s WGC-Accenture Match Play
Championship in the Arizona desert under increasing pressure to clean
up his game and his on-course demeanour.

Although he showed
distinct signs of improvement in the latter category, his week ended
abruptly when he was eliminated by Denmark’s Thomas Bjorn after 19
holes in the opening round.

It is now a distant
15 months since Woods last won a tournament anywhere in the world and
he would dearly love to end that barren run with the first major of the
year – the April 7-10 U.S. Masters – fast approaching.

Woods is a
four-time champion at Augusta National, the permanent home of the
Masters, and that venue offers him a comfort factor more than most
others.

However, there is
no doubt the American one has been totally frustrated by his inability
to string together four good rounds in one week while undergoing the
fourth swing change of his career.

Comfortably the
best player of his generation, he has struggled to regain his former
dominance after trying to repair his deteriorating marriage last year
and spending less time at practice than usual.

“Still in the
process, still working on it,” Woods said last week about the swing
changes he initiated with Canadian coach Sean Foley in August.

“That’s what I went
through with Hank (Haney) and went through with Butch (Harmon), he
added, referring to his previous swing coaches. “It took 18 months to a
couple of years.”

Erratic Play

Woods arrived at
Dove Mountain for last week’s Match Play event with renewed confidence
in his revamped swing after being blown off course at the Dubai Desert
Classic two weeks earlier.

“The game is
progressing, no doubt,” he said on the eve of the opening round. “Had
to work on a few things that we found were not right in Dubai, which
was good. And it feels like we’re heading in the right direction. Just
have to work on it and solidify it.” However, erratic play continued to
be the order of the day for the former world number one as he came from
two down after five holes to go one up after 12 before losing to Bjorn
on the 19th green.

“Disappointing,
very disappointing,” Woods said before heading home to Florida to
prepare for his next event, the March 10-13 WGC-Cadillac Championship
at Doral.

American television analyst, Johnny Miller, the 1976 British Open champion and U.S. Open winner in 1973, compared the downward spiral of Woods to the spectacular fall from grace by boxer Mike Tyson.

“It’s a little bit
like a Mike Tyson story to be honest with you,” Miller said in a Golf
Channel round-table discussion last week. “Sort of invincible, scared
everybody and performed quickly under pressure until Buster Douglas
came along. Tiger sort of hit that and it’s life. And his life
crumbled.” “It’s like Humpty Dumpty,” Miller added. “He was on a high
wall way above all the other players. He had a great fall and there are
pieces all over the place. He’s trying to put them together.

It’s a tough
thing.” Woods, a 14-times major champion, has not won a tournament
since the 2009 Australian Masters and he has slipped to number five in
the world – his lowest ranking since the week before he won the 1997
Masters.