MELBOURNE: Tiger Woods will be searching for his first tournament success of the year when he returns to Melbourne to defend his title at Thursday’s Australian Masters.
The 14-time major winner has endured a spectacular fall from grace since confessing late last year to committing adultery in a sex scandal that engulfed his personal and professional life.
Once seemingly unchallengeable, Woods lost his world top ranking to Englishman Westwood last week after a 281-week tenure at the top and is struggling to recapture past glories on the golf course.
Woods finished in lacklustre joint sixth place behind Italian Francesco Molinari at the HSBC Champions event in Shanghai at the weekend and now has only the Australian Masters and next month’s Chevron World Challenge in California to break his 2010 tournament drought.
In recent months he has employed the services of golfing instructor Sean Foley to overhaul his swing after splitting with his longtime coach Haney in the wake of the sex scandals.
Woods has blamed his struggles on the ongoing adjustment to changes in his swing wrought by Foley.
In a far cry to the hype that accompanied his visit last year when crowds at Kingston Heath were capped at 25,000 a day, tickets are still available for this week’s Masters at the Victoria sandbelt course. Fans have been told that if they heckle Woods over his off-course infidelities they will be ejected from the course.
Woods is being paid a reported three million dollar (three million US) appearance fee covered by the tournament owners and promoters IMG, and Victoria state’s taxpayers through the Victorian Major Events Company. Although Woods is the bookmakers’ favourite to win on Sunday, this year’s Masters has assembled a strong field headed by Australia’s top-ranked professional Robert Allenby, Colombia’s Camilo Villegas (ranked 30), Australia’s former US Open winner Geoff Ogilvy (38) and Spain’s Sergio Garcia (70).
