The Tiger is back. But it seems that at least for the next couple of tournaments he is going to be a fairly tamed tiger. This was one of the top-three highest television rated U.S. Masters golf championships. The event attracted almost twice as many television viewers compared to Angel Cabrera’s victory in last year’s event, yet it was not even close to the number of viewers that tuned in for Tiger Woods championship win in 1997. Most of the media coverage was centered upon Tiger Wood’s comeback to the Tour. It had been five months since he last played on a professional tournament. And truth be said, it was quite unclear how the public and his fans would react to his appearance in the course, nor how he would perform in the field. Up to the final minutes before tee-off the Tiger was the Favorite to win the Tournament. BetIAS.com had him as the No.1 favorite to win the U.S. Masters tournament at ML+350. Phil Mickelson was the second favorite to win it all. Closing at ML +750, some of the bettors who decided to give Mickelson try made a great good deal of money out of this one. But truth be said, the Tiger wasn’t very successful this week either on the golf course or in the betting industry. His head to head performance was a bit disappointing. He did not win his first round Match-Ups against K.J. Choi. Although the Tiger seemed to have had good comeback in the second round when he defeated Choi, he was never a serious treat. One the third and fourth round he faced Phil Mickelson and, truth be said, the Tiger was not even close of finishing each round with a better score. Mickelson won his third Masters by three strokes over Lee Westwood finishing with a 5-under-par 67 wile completing some truly spectaculars shots that placed him higher and higher on Sunday’s scoreboard. But none of those shots was as dramatic as the one he fired into an opening between the trees in the 13th hole. Even caddie Jim Mckay tried to talk Mickleson out of taking such a risky shot. And Mckay had his good reasons. Mickelson has lost some very important games in his career because of how aggressive and ambitious he has been in the past. Perhaps the best example happened back in the 2006 US Open at Winged Foot. Phil was just a couple stroked away from winning one of the most important events in the golf world. He came to the 18th hole with a one stroke advantage. He hit a poor drive off into the left rough. Then he took a decision to shot for the green from the rough while avoiding a big three in his way. The ball hit a tree and he was forced to settle for a double-bogey. That was enough for Geoff Ogilvy to come from the back and win the tournament by one stroke. So when Mickelson hit that difficult shot at the 13th hole in the Augusta National, he probably completed the best shot of the tournament and quite possibly the best shot of his career. And then it was laid out perfectly for him. He went for pars in the 9th, 10th and 11th holes and kept up the good pace. Mickelson, the talented left-hander, is up to his 4th major even win of this career.
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