The sold out signs went up in Akron the second Tiger Woods edged into the world top 50 with his tied-sixth finish at the Open championship. That result gained him entry into last week’s WGC-Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone, incidentally the scene of his last victory five years ago. This is not the old Tiger we are seeing, the one that won 14 majors in 11 years. History shows there has been, and will only ever be, just the one of them. But the reconstituted version is proving good enough to contend and enters the final major of the season, the PGA Championship at Bellerive in St Louis, justifiably among the favourites for the Wanamaker Trophy. From a ranking of 1,199 last December, Woods is back among the elite and rising. His return is no longer a matter of romance but substantiated by cold, hard fact. Four top tens in 12 starts this year, two of those coming in his most recent events leading into Akron. He finished one shot shy of taking the Valspar Championship into a play-off in March, and fifth a week later at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. At the Open Championship last month he led by a stroke on the final day with eight to play. A double bogey at the 11th followed by another dropped shot at the 12th eventually ended his challenge but not the idea of the Tiger resurrection. Woods’ presence at the top of the leaderboard transformed the Carnoustie experience. His entrance on the first tee on day one evinced the biggest cheer of the opening round and reminded us what it felt like to be in the presence of box office gold.

A Walk On The Wild Side

Since my newspaper, the i, does not publish on a Sunday, I thought I would treat myself to an extended period in the field and chose Rory McIlroy as my walking partner on Saturday afternoon. I was surprised at the space in the press gallery at the first tee, ordinarily oversubscribed when McIlroy pulls the big stick from the bag. The steward pointed out that a cortege of reporters the size of a small football crowd had hooked itself to the Tiger train up ahead. Woods was in the process of pinning a 66 to the leaderboard. The ensuing meltdown had nothing to do with the uncharacteristically hot summer. Six birdies and no bogeys were the bones of it, a controlled assault redolent of Woods at his peak inside the ropes, frenzy among those looking on. As the heightened demands of championship Sunday began to account for the overnight leaders, Jordan Spieth, Kevin Kisner and Xander Schauffele, Woods slipped the old game face on and birdied the 4th and 6th to join the lead and then parred his way to the turn to take sole charge of the tournament. In his previous event three weeks earlier, the Quicken Loans National, he had finished tied fourth. So Carnoustie was no accident. He faltered on the rump of a poor approach to the 11th followed by a chip that rolled back down a bank. Tiny, tiny margins. The bogey at the 12th was almost a consequence of the double the previous hole. He steadied and briefly threatened again with a bounce-back birdie at the 14th. This was significant since his playing partner, Francesco Molinari, was now the man in front. A lesser version of the latter Woods might have folded. Not this one.