Adare Manor Tiger Woods was ready to board his private jet and head back into the maelstrom. After sweeping into Ireland with much fanfare, he returned to Florida 36 hours later in a forlorn effort to redress the chaos of his private life.
As so often with Woods, it was what he did not say on Tuesday that was most telling. Having paid due deference to the JP McManus Invitational here, the worthy two-day event he had just graced, the world No 1 was at his staccato, excruciating worst fending off questions about why he was heading home so soon.
Pressed on why he would not be refining his links golf technique before next week's Open Championship at St Andrews, he replied: "Because I need to go home." Asked if his abrupt departure for Orlando was due to "personal stuff", he said, tersely: "To see my kids."
The most uncomfortable silence occurred as a reporter wondered aloud if Woods felt that all his misdemeanours had been worth it, in light of his ragged form since returning to the game. He interjected: "I think you are reading too much into this."
For those hoping for the humility he had promised to show, this was a dispiriting reversion to type. The anger simmered in Woods's eyes.
He has failed to win any of the six events he has entered after becoming embroiled in a sex scandal and there are suspicions, with his marriage to Elin Nordegren understood to be on the verge of collapse, that golf has become a relative triviality in his life.
Desperate attempt
Traditionally, he has started mobilising for an Open early, travelling with his friend, Mark O'Meara, to play such great Irish courses as Royal Dublin the week before. But this time he is compelled to be a transatlantic commuter, trying desperately to repair the damage that all his affairs have caused. "Golf is something that I've done for a very long time, and there are times in one's life when things get put into perspective," he admitted. "One being when my father passed away, and obviously with what I have been going through lately."
But Woods could not avoid the fact that, before last month's US Open at Pebble Beach, he had expressed his wish that every major was contested at St Andrews. He has won the last two Opens played on the Old Course the first, in 2000, by eight shots and if any tournament can help purge the frustrations of his season, it is this one.
"To win at the home of golf, that would be what every champion wants to have happen," he said. "This is where it all started. To walk up the last hole, I've had that at other championships, but this is different."
Woods was not quite so enthusiastic under the steady rain of Adare. Some 10 or so children broke through the security cordon on the ninth tee but, as his mood darkened, these would be about the only autographs he signed.
