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Tiger Woods says work led him back to playing

 
Published April 8, 2015

AUGUSTA, Ga. — At times in the past seven weeks, Tiger Woods hit the ball so pure that he felt like a 14-time major champion again. At other times the swing left him and he resembled a guy who couldn't break 80.

He became so frustrated that he even threw a few clubs because of a game that had never been so maddening.

That left him trying to decide if he should even show up at this week's Masters. He has.

"I worked my (tail) off," Woods said Tuesday at Augusta National. "That's the easiest way to kind of describe it. I worked hard. … It was sunup to sundown, whenever I had free time. If the kids were asleep, I'd still be doing it. And then when they were in school, I'd still be doing it."

It took nearly two months, then two practice rounds at Augusta National last week, before Woods decided to end his self-imposed break.

He is ranked No. 111 and Las Vegas bookies might have been generous in listing him at 40-1. But the four-time Masters champion always said he didn't play in a tournament if he didn't expect to win and that standard hasn't changed, though he owns no PGA Tour victories since the 2013 WGC Bridgestone Invitational.

"No, I still feel the same way. I want to win," he said. "The whole idea is to prepare and do that. And I feel like my game is finally ready to go and do that again."

Woods will play in today's Par-3 competition, the first time he has played it since 2004. He said his daughter Sam, 7, and son Charlie, 6, would caddy for him. They kids were on the green at the practice area Tuesday with Woods' girlfriend, Olympic ski champion Lindsey Vonn.

Slam chance: He's ranked No. 1, won the past two majors and stars in a poignant new Nike commercial he admits to having watched — but only once.

If this was any other Masters, Rory McIlroy would be the talk of golf. That he's not — at least right now — is only because of Woods' latest comeback.

That's not necessarily a bad thing as McIlroy prepares for his seventh Masters, trying to fill the biggest hole in his resume by completing a career Grand Slam.

"Does it give people something else to talk about? Yes," McIlroy said. "But I'm not necessarily listening to anything that anyone is saying, so it doesn't really make a difference to me.'

Last year's British Open and PGA Championship winner has prepared mostly out of the spotlight, working the past few weeks near his home in Jupiter.

"I just really felt like spending a couple of weeks away from this, I guess," McIlroy said. "Just preparing at home and in private and not really having everything critiqued and analyzed and overanalyzed. So I just wanted to get away from it all, and I feel like it's been a good thing."

Bubba at his best: Defending champ Bubba Watson, who has won the Masters two of the past three years, is a polarizing figure in the game, a guy with an insular view of the world and not always a man of the people.

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That reputation tailed him all the way to the Masters, when ESPN released a survey of 103 players that showed he's easily the least-popular among his fellow PGA Tour competitors.

Watson didn't dispute that he has had some "mess-ups" and said he hopes to use the criticism to become a better person.

"I take it as I need to improve as a man," he said. "I need to get better. And I think over my career, since my rookie season to now, I've gotten better.

"I'm glad that it came out, and it's going to help me improve. So if it's a bad thing, and people don't like me, then I've got to improve and prove them wrong."