Tiger Woods has once again set in motion the mechanism that counted his titles in the World Golf Championship (WGC) series, stopped since August 2009, with a superlative victory in the Cadillac Championship in Miami, at the legendary ‘Blue Monster’ at Doral. Miami was not the first victory for Tiger since his golfing heart stopped with his infidelities at the end of 2009 and the subsequent divorce.
The Californian, who also lost his world leadership in that trance, opened his PGA Tour account in 2012 with three titles. Last January, he even added to that list by winning the Farmers Insurance Open, not counting the “family” Chevron World Challenge (18 players) he won at the end of 2011.
What Tiger has achieved, at 37 years old, is to regain his status in the WGC, which consists of four tournaments throughout the season and brings together only the best players in the world ranking. The World Championships are, after the Grand Slam tournaments, the most important tournaments on the calendar.
Therefore, the fact that Tiger won in Miami his seventh Cadillac Championship -the last one was in 2007- and seventeenth WGC title with a lead maintained from the first day, with record birdies and putts, undoubtedly underlines a turning point.
Tiger’s career is once again gaining momentum with valuable fuel. A month before the start of the Augusta Masters, the big news for golf is that Tiger has broken the lock.
Such was Woods’ superiority in the windy final round (he started with a 4-stroke lead) that the story of his 18 holes was a compilation of his numbers: second title in 2013, the 77th of his PGA Tour career (five behind Sam Snead’s record), $1.5 million in prize money and already second on the money list.
The best, in terms of golf, came from the hands that dominate the world ranking, those of Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy. The 23 year old settled his debts with a brilliant 65 (7 under), the best Sunday card and which served to get into the top-10 and erase the frustrating performances in the three previous tournaments he has played.
The overall work and finish of Spaniard Sergio Garcia was no less spectacular. The 33-year-old Spaniard from Castellón finished fourth, with a final 69 strokes and confirmed in the supreme elite, in the top group among the best in the world.
Leave a Reply