Ryder Cup 2018: Tiger Woods revelling in newfound form as catalyst to inspire Team USA in Paris
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Loading... - Siomi Kennedy
- 26 Sep 2021
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The two main men of the European team probably did not need reminding but Tiger Woods could not resist.
Two days after his epic comeback win, he could not resist revelling in how he saw off Rory McIlroy and Justin Rose on a memorable Sunday in Atlanta.
He could not resist celebrating the unlikely return of the Tiger effect, his heat melting the big-name challengers, just like old times.
Ahead of the final round at the Tour Championship last weekend, McIlroy and Rose were poised to strike a pre- Ryder Cup blow for Thomas Bjorn’s team.
But they never laid a glove on Woods and, less than 48 hours later, the smile of satisfaction was still spread wide across Tiger’s features.
“It was a blast because I had to beat Rory head-up in the final group,” Woods said. “Obviously, I had a three-shot cush, which is awfully nice, but still, I had not done it in five years.
“Rosey was tied with Rory. These guys had both ascended to number one players in the world, they have won Major championships, they have won golf tournaments all around the world and I have not played a whole lot of golf the last few years.”
They have never said it publicly but chances are McIlroy and Rose, at some point, shared the locker-room wisdom that Woods would never recapture his magnificence.
And to some of golf’s new breed, to several of his team-mates in France this week, that magnificence was just a sprawling chapter in history, something they could only see on film.
Woods, 42, said: “A lot of these guys - well, the younger guys - were on their way in when I was on my way out.
“You know, they had never really played against me when I was playing well. It’s been, what, five years since I’ve won a golf tournament.
“And a lot of the players were just coming onto the scene, whether it is JT (Justin Thomas), Jordan (Spieth), now Bryson (DeChambeau).
“So a lot these guys just had not played against me yet.
“I think when my game is there, I feel like I’ve been a tough person to beat.
“They had jokingly been saying … ‘we want to go against you’.
“Alright, here you go. And we had a run at it and it was a blast.”
The player that won for the first time since 2013 might have been vintage Tiger but the current version, after the myriad physical and personal problems he has had to deal with, is a different animal.
He admitted how he was so nervous in his first Ryder Cup appearance, in 1997, that he wanted playing partner Mark O’Meara to take the first shot in the opening foursomes.
He recalled the emotional talk he had with his dad Earl after blowing the chance to win the 2006 Masters, having been desperate for his dying father to see him in the Green Jacket for a final time.
And he laughed about the increasing rowdiness of golf galleries, rowdiness which could well reach new levels this weekend.
He laughed: “The art of the clap has gone. People don’t clap because how can you clap when you have a cell phone in your hand?
“People are now screaming and they are pretty loud and especially late in the day when they have tipped back a few.
“In Wales (Ryder Cup 2010), when you got on the first tee, it was reverberating. You could feel it.
“I loved it. I think this will be exactly like that but I think the decibels will be up a little higher.
“It is going to be fun.”
You cannot fail to tell how the new Woods is having an awful lot of fun.
But as McIlroy and Rose have found out, when the gun goes on Friday morning, the Europeans will be facing the old Tiger.
