As Tiger Woods climbed the steep slope from the seventh green it was a great, iconic figure arriving on one of golf’s most famous stages - the teeing ground for the hole they call the 'Postage Stamp'. His gait has an uneasiness because his right foot needed reconstruction after nearly losing his leg in a car crash and there is a certain stiffness to his movement because his back has long since been surgically fused. But he still carries an aura.
Even when it is just him and his caddie Lance Bennett on a Sunday recce before a major week, there is a presence about Tiger. The fans know it and he commands the biggest gallery as he merely shakes off the effects of the overnight flight from Florida to the South Ayrshire coast where he plays the 152nd Open at Royal Troon this week. It will be his 23rd Open and 95th major.
He will insist he can contend even though compelling evidence suggests otherwise and crowds will continue to flock to follow the 48-year-old. There is still magic in the hands that have held 15 major trophies. From the elevated teeing ground on Troon’s renowned eighth hole, an area surrounded by a grandstand running the length of The Open’s shortest hole, he swings in carefree fashion.
It is a 123-yard flick with a wedge that tracks all the way, lands, skips and stops three feet from the pin. Moments later he nonchalantly knocks in the birdie putt. This was the hole where outside hopes had once floundered with a final-round triple-bogey six.
That was in 1997 .
