The Wait is Finally Over As Tiger Tees Up Again

Shortly after noon today at the ­Ritz-Carlton club near Tucson, Arizona, all will be revealed – but one thing is already known: Tiger Woods is ready. After 8½ months away from the game through injury, the world's most recognisable athlete emerged into the light of a hundred ­flashbulbs yesterday, flushed from an early-morning practice session before today's first round of the Accenture Match Play Championship and imbued with a self-belief that was steely, even by his standards.

When he played in the 2006 US Open shortly after the death of his father, Earl, Woods teed up his ball for the first round of a tournament feeling that he might not win – a revelation that prompted an ­obvious question. After being out for so long, is he pessimistic about his chances this week? "No, that [the 2006 US Open] was the only time," he said confidently.

The implication was as obvious as it was bold. Like the best Hollywood film trailers, Woods has promised big things. Now he has to deliver an epic performance, and even he is nervous, it seems. "Yeah, I will be nervous but the day I'm not nervous is the day I quit," he said. He will tee off at 12.03pm local time (7.03pm GMT) against the world No64, Brendan Jones.

Only a gambler nursing ambitions of abject poverty would make the case that there are absolute certainties in matchplay golf but, equally, it would take a rare boldness to foresee anything other than a victory for the world No1.

For one thing, Jones himself has been recovering from an injury of his own and has played very little tournament golf over the last few months. Then there is Woods' appetite for competition, which was never less than ravenous but appears to have intensified during his time away from the game.

"I am looking forward to the rush tomorrow, I really am, waking up ­tomorrow – getting ready for my round, getting focused and coming out here, warming up and getting fired up for my match against Brendan," he said.

"I am looking forward to that rush more than anything because I haven't had it for a long time. You can have money games at home with the guys, but it is not the same. This is what I do for a living, this is what I have wanted to do for my entire life and not being able to do it at the highest level has been frustrating."

There have been compensations, ­however, not least the chance to spend more time with his family, he said. "I didn't realize how much I loved being at home and being around Elin (his wife) and Sam (his daughter) and now Charlie (his recently born son), so it was a blessing in disguise to be away from the game," he said.

Ominously for Jones and the other 62 players in the field, he has also had time to indulge in his endless search for improvement, and with some success apparently. "My short game has got better," he said. "I have got more shots than I had before, just because I spent so much time chipping and hitting all the different shots around the green. I had forgotten I had some of the shots, so it is nice that I remembered how to hit them again."

If Woods is relishing his return to ­competitive golf, then his relief is more than matched by that of the game itself, which is suffering because of the global economic turmoil. Even the world No1 has not been immune, having lost his endorsement deal with the car manufacturer Buick, while his Tiger Woods Foundation has a sponsorship deal with a company owned by Allen Stanford, the financier at the center of fraud investigations into running of his businesses. Stanford also had ­sponsorships deals with other players, most notably Vijay Singh, and with the PGA Tour itself, which has a deal with Stanford to sponsor an event in Memphis later this summer.

Against this backdrop of bad news, the Woods comeback is timely. What would be even more timely from the tour's ­perspective would be for its most valuable asset to go all the way and win Sunday's 36-hole final. He has done it three times in the past and, whatever the vagaries of the matchplay format, he could do it again.