Star Golfer Tiger Woods mission has always been to be better than the past. Despite losing his marriage and every tournament he played, he still gave himself a pass grade for 2010. "As a golfer, I learned so much more this year than any other year, and as a person, infinitely more," Woods said Tuesday.
"So it's been a very successful year, even though it was a very painful year, as well."
That year comes to a close with the Chevron World Challenge, which starts Thursday featuring an 18-man field of players inside the top 50 in the world ranking.
Woods has won the last two times he played, although he missed the last two years, in 2008 while recovering from knee surgery, and last year because of the Thanksgiving night accident that led to revelations of his infidelity. It was a year that Woods described as "harder than anyone could have imagined."
On Tuesday of tournament week a year ago, the Florida Highway Patrol cited him for reckless driving and fined him $164 for running his SUV over a fire hydrant and into a tree outside his home, while a magazine had a cover story from a cocktail waitress who said she had 300 text messages to prove her 31-month affair with Woods.
His personal life was just starting to unravel. Woods said he never thought about walking away from golf for the entire year, shooting down speculation in a book that he would enlist in the Navy.
Woods said as a kid, he either wanted to be a pro golfer or a Navy SEAL. "I love playing the game of golf," Woods said.
"It's fun, it's certainly challenging, and it's also something that I know when I do it right, I'm pretty good at it." That was not lost on Ian Poulter as he hit balls on the range Tuesday morning and talked about the world ranking, amazed that Woods has lost more ranking points than any player has earned this year.
Poulter recalled a time not long ago when the distance between Woods and whoever was No. 2 in the world was greater than No. 2 and the player ranked 100th or lower.
"It shows how good," Poulter said, pausing. It sounded as though he was ready to say "how good he was," but the Englishman caught himself, because he believes Woods will return. "It shows how good he can be when he's at his best."
Can he get it back? "I think it's in him even more," Poulter said. Woods talked about the need to change his personal life and his golf swing, but he never explained until Tuesday why he had to change a swing that had brought him 31 tour victories, including six majors, under Hank Haney.
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