Tiger Woods Is Once Again The Master of The Masters!

It took Tiger Woods 14 years, several surgeries and a lot of work, but the world's former number one golfer has finally come all the way back.

Tiger won his fifth Masters title, his first since 2005 and his first golf major title since 2008 after some agonizing near misses last year.   It is also the 15th Grand Slam major golf title he has won, putting him now only three wins away from catching golf legend Jack Nicklaus.   

Tiger after shooting a 67 in the third round to get him to -11 for the tournament, entered today's final round two strokes behind the leader Francesco Molinari.  It also put him in the final threesome of golfers with Molinari and Tony Finau who was also at -11 with him for the first time since 2007.

He and the remaining golfers because of the threat of bad weather at Augusta National, teed off early starting at 7:30 AM EDT in an ultimately successful attempt to get the final round in and avoid playing on Monday.  Tiger's group teed off at 9:20 AM.

Molinari led much of the day until double bogeys on holes 12 and 15 opened a window for Tiger to snatch the lead, and he pounced on it like back in the day Tiger.

Woods birdied the par 5 hole 13, the par 5 15th hole, and nearly got a hole in one on the par 3 16th hole for another birdie to build a two stroke lead with two holes to play on Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka.   After Koepka missed a birdie putt on 18 that would have put pressure on Woods to at least par the hole, Woods tapped a short putt in for a bogey that clinched his fifth green jacket.

He is now only one Masters win from tying Jack Nicklaus, and three Grand Slam titles away from tying Nicklaus for all time major titles with 18.

And it was a long time in coming.

Tiger Wins First Golf Tourney In Two Years

I wasn't in much of a football watching mood after my fave collegiate team took it on the chin Saturday.   After I was satisfied that the Texans won, I changed channels to see if Tiger Woods was finally going to come out on top in a golf tournament for the first time in two years.

The last time Tiger Woods was victorious in a tournament was on November 15, 2009 when he was the world's number one ranked player and won the Australian Masters.   Then came the fateful car crash during Thanksgiving weekend and all the turmoil surrounding it.  

On this day Woods was ranked number 52 in the world and was trailing Zach Johnson by one stroke going into the final day of his Chevron World Challenge in Thousand Oaks, CA.    Johnson relinquished the lead to Woods on the front nine holes and fell two shots behind him but came back to tie him and regain the lead with a birdie on the 16th hole.   

But the Tiger we remember showed up and showed out.  He made a clutch 16 foot birdie putt to tie Johnson on the 17th hole and after a Johnson miss on the 18th hole, drained another six foot birdie putt for his 83rd overall tournament win an his first in 749 days and 26 official events. 

The win also skyrocketed Tiger up the world golf ranking charts to number 21.

If the magic is back, we'll find out when he plays that late January 2012 tournament in Abu Dhabi.  If he wins it or is in the top ten finishers, look out PGA tour, the slump may indeed be over and I may have to start watching major tournaments again.  Tiger is only three major tournament wins away from catching Jack Nicklaus and four from surpassing him

And if the way he played last Sunday is an indicator of how 2012 may go, it's doable.