If either of his replacements, Steve James or Nick Knight, had made runs, his rejuvenation might have been to no avail.”Actually, I was never worried about that,” he said. “I just thought that I would get back because I was batting well enough to do so, if not for this summer than sometime soon.” There was probably, too, of course, the perfectly healthy reaction of wanting England to win, of wanting his replacements to make runs and not fail ignominiously but, perhaps, not to become heroes either. Now Strange looks prophetic.No longer does Woods state prior to every tournament that he is there to win And nor does he. Instead, he talks about having improved as a player and how much more consistent he is And so he is.

Already he has more top-10 finishes this season than in the whole of last and he was in the top-10 of three of the four majors. He finished second to Mark O’Meara in a table of lowest aggregates from the four majors.”It’s a more mature Tiger than you saw last year I’ve got more shots. I understand how to hit shots when I’m not really feeling well over the ball, how to get the ball out there and keep it in play. “But, on tour, second or third is not too bad,” Strange said.

Woods concurred but restated his original premise: he was only interested in winning Strange laughed “You’ll learn,” he said. For a while the joke seemed to be on his fellow professionals, the ones conditioned to life, and survival, on tour. Woods won seven times in his first nine month as a pro, including the 1997 Masters in stupendous fashion. How different it was almost exactly two years ago when Woods won his third US Amateur title and turned professional with $43m in his pocket.

At his next tournament, Curtis Strange, the former US Open champion who now works for the ABC network in America, interviewed Woods.It soon became apparent that Woods was interested only in winning. This game is not like a basketball game or football game or baseball game where it’s cut and dried every day, you win or lose Here, you have to wait four days and then you win or lose. If people see that you’re on a winning streak, they go out and buy your stuff. But in this game it’s a little difficult to win.”In the past 12 months, Woods has confirmed that theory with only two victories. But he is keenly aware that his performances have a direct correlation.
“I see a lot of the kids wearing my logoed stuff,” Woods said. “But from a player’s perspective, I think people just like to be associated with things that are winning, maybe, not just being consistent.”For something to really sell, you have to win a lot.