Dubai: Tiger Woods tees off in today's Dubai Desert Challenge as the red-hot favourite, but a stronger-than-usual posse of rivals will be doing their best to thwart his bid of reclaiming the title he won in 2006.
The American, however, appears to be at his best form having won his season-opener, the Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines in California by an awesome eight strokes.
That performance should suffice to send a strong message to his challengers for a share of the $2.4million purse in 'Desert Swing' finale. Woods himself said he was 'really looking forward to teeing it up this week and giving it a go.'
"I've always played pretty well coming off breaks," said the winner of 62 PGA Tour events.
"I feel fresh and my practice sessions were pretty good. I'm really excited about getting back out and playing, particularly after playing well last week."
Woods also predicted some low scores over the weekend, given the way the Majlis Course was laid out.
"I think the greens are a little bit slower than they have been in the past. You have a little bit more grass and I think that's probably because it has rained here," he said. "The rough is up a touch and the fairways are narrowed down, and they are certainly playing just a touch longer, so the balls are not really rolling as much.
"But all in all, the golf course is, again, in perfect shape as it is year-in and year-out. Obviously if wind doesn't blow like it did today, the guys are going to go really low because the greens are running perfect."
Woods, who is developing the first Tiger Woods-designed course and golf resort in the world at Dubailand, also talked about his goals, priorities and weaknesses. He also said that he never dreamt that he would win 12 Major championship title at the age of 32.
Self doubts
"When I first turned pro, could I ever have foreseen this happening this soon in my career? No, certainly not. Not having 13 majors by the time I'm 32," Woods said. "I wouldn't have foreseen getting to that point because at the time my game wasn't good enough. I had not matured and had not understood how to play the game."
The American admitted that even he has self doubts and noted that experience and course strategy has made him the player he is.
"Over the years, understanding how to manage my game around the course and getting the most out of it every day, that takes experience," said Woods.
"When I first turned pro, there is no way I could ever have foreseen that. I didn't have that experience. I didn't have that knowledge to get around the course."
Acknowledging that self doubts did occasionally creep in to his game, he said: "You have those doubts and the whole idea is to obviously keep pushing through and keep improving and have a game plan to execute."
He also named St Andrews as his favourite golf course and said that his number one priority in life was his family.
