Profile / Ralph Ellis / 19 December 2008 / Leave a comment

Nevermind the latest spat with Lefty, Tiger Woods' 2008 US Open victory stands among the all-time great moments of sports, says Ralph Ellis. And, though his game may not be for public consumption at that moment, he will be back and he will win.

If there was an award for toughest sportsman of the year it would have to go to Tiger Woods.

Okay, so it's hard to reconcile golf as a hard man's sport. It's not boxing, it's not Rugby League or even Union for that matter where the physical contact and the big hits come hard and fast. But for sheer dogged determination to win despite pain, Woods' US Open title was right there among the all-time great moments of sport.

Every time he hit the ball you could see the agony shoot through his body. But for four days he stuck with the job, rolled in a monster putt on the 18th green to earn himself the right to do it for one more day, and then went right the way through a 19 hole play-off before he collected the trophy. It was an object lesson in the year's buzzword: "A winning mentality".

Woods went off for surgery after his battle of wounded knee, and we've heard little from him until this week when his caddie got into a row for insulting Phil Mickelson. Typically, the world number one has been very swift to heal the wounds from that little spat too. The two men have never been friends, but Woods has too much class to let any division between them become public and fester into an open sore.

What you might not have noticed was that Woods also took the chance to deliver an update on his recovery. And you won't be surprised to learn it is going ahead of target.

It's now six months since his left knee was completely rebuilt and the Daily Express's golf man Neil Squires is on the ball this morning to report Woods' verdict. He wasn't due to start hitting shots again until next month, but is already chipping, putting and taking full swings with the short clubs.

"It isn't going very far - about 100 yards" says Tiger. (That's about the same length as my five iron goes, incidentally!) "My game is not for public consumption right now, but I couldn't have asked for anything more.

"It feels great to have stability in the leg. It feels stronger, it's not shaking all over the place. My bones aren't moving and I'm actually stronger in the legs than I've ever been."

That's ominous for the rest of the golfers as normal service is about to be resumed. There's no target date for a comeback yet, but Squires reckons it's a formality Woods will be ready to go in time for the Masters - and he's already [3.65] favourite to win it.

That's probably too short a price at the moment, but he will be back and will win again, which means the chance to lay Tiger failing to win a single Major this year at anywhere between the [3.0] on offer today and [1.7] is great value. The Tiger Specials market is in any early stage, but there's even a couple of quid on offer at [50.0] for him to scoop all four!

Five things you might not know about Tiger Woods' knee operation

1. It was performed by Thomas Rosenberg at a clinic in a Rocky Mountain ski resort

2. He had performed a "clean-up" on the knee two months earlier to enable Tiger to play in the US Open
3. Rosenberg pioneered a new technique taking hamstring muscle to repair cruciate ligaments and it's believed that's how he treated Woods

4. Woods swing generates a pace of 125 mph, which causes the left knee to rotate around 70 to 80 degrees - in a joint that's designed just to move forward and back like a door hinge

5. Rosenberg is the retained doctor for the American ski, skating and snowboarding teams