Golf is about to get interesting again

As much as I love golf, I have to admit I haven’t looked forward to watching tournaments as much as I am this week.

Let’s face it – golf’s popularity surge in recent years is because of Tiger Woods, and folks from The Golf Channel, NBC and PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem were probably high-fiving and toasting each other when Woods announced week before last that he would make his comeback from injury at this week’s Accenture Match Play Championship, which begins Wednesday.

It will be interesting to see what happens. Woods’ first-round match is against unheralded, relatively unknown Australian Brendan Jones. Jones admittedly gives himself a slim-to-none chance of beating Woods. But Woods hasn’t played competitively since last June, when he beat Rocco Mediate in an 18-hole playoff at the U.S. Open despite a bad knee and a stress fracture.

Any normal golfer wouldn’t be given much of a chance to win this week’s event under these circumstances. It can be a grind. The winner of the tournament will have won six matches in five days, a tough task whether matches are short blowouts, long and down-to-the-wire or anywhere in between.

But Woods, as we all know, isn’t just a normal golfer. Just remember back to his last tournament, when he was down a leg and still won golf’s toughest test.

Jones is taking the right approach: low-key. The last nobody to talk a little smack about Woods before the Match Play event was Stephen Ames two years ago. He lost 9-and-8, as early as is mathematically possible, in his first-round match against Woods.

And Jones gives himself at least a little chance. Against great odds, he sees great opportunity.

But so did Mediate and Ames. Remember how those turned out.

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