Golf Events / Bill Elliott / 09 March 2009 /

Bill Elliott looks ahead to the next leg of the World Golf Championship events, the WGC-CA Championship where Tiger Eldrick Woods plays the second tournament of his comeback.

Right lads, here we go. The WGC-World Matchplay was a nice bit of fun last month but this week we get to the serious stuff, 72-hole strokeplay at Doral with 8.5million bucks at stake, just 77 competitors, a group that includes Tiger Eldrick Woods. This time we can really begin to gauge his form and fitness going into the Masters.

Significantly, he only committed to this event at the last possible moment a few days ago. Why significant? Well, while I hesitate to state the bleeding obvious, this delay - a huge irritation to the tournament promoters by the way - suggests that he really was not sure if he was up to four days of demanding golf. There is, remember, no 36 hole cut at these WGC thingys.

The official word dripping out of the Tiger camp is, as usual, more positive than a Barack Obama speech. Whittled down, these words may be summed up as..."I feel great, I look great, I expect to play great, life is indeed great. If anything was a wee bit greater I'd have to lie down." This, of course, is the Woods way - never admit a weakness, never reveal a flaw.

It is also, however, hard to believe. Call me an old cynic but I suspect that Woods found his return to competitive golf more than a little challenging. His knee may be tickety-boo again (or it may not) but other bits of his body will have objected swiftly to the big demands he places on himself during a competitive week. Look, let me put this simply...I have high hopes for him at Augusta but if he wins this week then I will be surprised. Not shocked admittedly but certainly seriously surprised.

This will be nothing like the surprise offered up by YE Yang. The Korean was ranked 460th in the world - and lucky to be that high - going into the Honda Classic last weekend but he defied all intelligence by winning for the first time since his HSBC Champions triumph three years ago. He was first out in the Honda a year ago, this time he was last out and finished first. Confused? We all are.

His win, however, helps to underline further the extraordinary advance of Korean golfers in particular and Far East players in general. This group already dominate the women's tour and now there is every sign that they are beginning to circle the men's game too. Certainly, US-based challengers increasingly are being drawn from a unique blend of Asian-American genes.

KJ Choi has led the way here in recent years but now the likes of Anthony Kim (Korean-American) and Kevin Na (similar background) are helping to shape the home circuit. Over the last several years it has been women from the Far East who have tended to sledge-hammer their way through the world's better tournaments and now it may well be the men's turn.

Certainly the interest in Japan's current hottest young player, Ryo Ishikawa, is fast approaching the same perfect storm of attention that surrounded Tiger when he too was 17. The reason for all this exotic ballyhoo is easy enough to identify. Golf perfectly suits the Eastern mindset and there is also a relentless work ethic - often driven by upsettingly ambitious parents - that urges these blokes onward and upward.

Whether one of them emerges to triumph at Doral come Sunday remains open to debate but it is difficult to entirely bet against such an outcome. What is certain is that defending champ Geoff Ogilvy is in town, that Tiger has much to prove and not much time to prove it, that Rory McIlroy continues to impress and that Phil Mickelson and Sergio Garcia are beginning to hit form properly.

Oh, and may I mention Ernie Els? The big man has been discarded by many punters over the last year as frustration has kicked in at his inability to engage top gear for the big weeks. I understand this, but I will point out two things...(1) Chubby Chandler (Ernie's amiable manager) tells me that Els is working harder than for some time on his game and in particular his putting and (b) he shot 66 on Sunday at the Honda.

Don't say you haven't been warned.

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