Woods Came Back in Two Months

Finally, the scene that the `Emperor of Golf` Tiger Woods (USA) was holding a golf club was caught by a camera. It has been exactly two months since his knee operation on December 12th of last year. Although he practiced shots during rehabilitation, it is the first time that it is published on media.

It was the official practice round of the 2003 US PGA Tour Buick Invitational (4.5 million dollars total prize money) held at the north course of the La Joya Tori Pines Golf Club (par 72. 6,874 yards) in California, USA on the 12th in a foggy and rainy day.

Woods prepared a debut of this season rounding 18 holes in just 2 hours holding an umbrella with his exclusive caddy Steve Williams. After the practice, Woods showed off his well-being like he said, “My mental and physical conditions are the best.”

Although the visibility range was just 100 yards, his fairway-hit ratio was 100%, and he missed just 2 holes. Especially, he reached the second shot of the 18th hole (par 5) that he hit with the number 3 wood safely at the 3.6m away from the hole cup, and he showed off his long-hit ability fully. One lacking thing was that he did not fully do putting practice. The greens were wet, so he picked up the ball after the first putting in most holes. Is it because the attacking points by the location of pins were memorized in his mind since he won this tournament by the record of least shots (22 under par, 266 shots) in 1999 held at the same course?

Woods, who skipped 5 tournaments this season, seemed to keep Ernie Ells (South Africa), who won 2 tournaments, in his mind and showed his will to win by saying, “I have a goal to catch up with this early season.” According to the grouping announced on the 12th, Woods` partners in the first and second rounds are Phil Tatorangi, who is a native New Zealander, and Ian Regat (Canada).

In the mean time, the `Tank` Choi, Gyong-Joo (Superior. Taylormade), who has not done well since the season opener, is grouped together with B.J. Sing (Fiji) for 2 consecutive tournaments since the Pebble Beach Pro-Am Tournament at the first and second rounds, so they will have shot match-up. Choi, Gyong-Joo will tee-off at the 10th hole in the South Course at 3 in the morning on the 14th (Korean local time), and Woods will tee-off at the first hole in the North Course at the same time.

In the meantime, around 300 reporters, which were twice as many as usual, have been issued the press cards in this tournament, so they showed their interests on the return of the `Emperor of Golf` to the Tour.

Young-Sik Ahn ysahn@donga.com