WELL, IN CASE there was any doubt about it before, Tiger Woods is most certainly ‘back’.

His victory at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill was the one he and his fans had been waiting for since his last Tour win at the BMW Championship in September 2009.

The big question now is what he can do from here. How far can his game and his body take him? How will he cope with the emergence of Rory McIlroy and the improvement of the likes of Luke Donald, Martin Kaymer et al?

In the short term, Woods has been installed as favourite for the Masters which is now just 10 days away. Some bookmakers are even going as short as 7\2 which is an extremely short price for any golfer. But that surely is a reflection of the fact that it is now very difficult to find good enough reasons to bet against Woods.

The signs he displayed on Sunday around Bay Hill were the closest we’ve seen by a long way to the Tiger of old. In fact, some might argue that now he is even more dangerous than before. That might be stretching it slightly, but when is the last time we saw Woods lead the driving stats at a tournament? Even when he was winning Majors with regularity his driving was his achilles heel, but it seems as though this aspect of his game has improved immeasurably.

On top of that, his iron play was nicely controlled — he attacked the flags when he needed to and sought the safety of the middle of the green on the right occasions. He limited his risk taking and at no point did he appear to be chasing a birdie, they just came to him.

Question marks

The big questions marks this season have actually been aroud his putting, but even that looked as if it had never left him. Sure, he didn’t make them all, but he made some pretty big ones. What’s more, the ball seemed to be entering the cup at a confident pace, the sign of a man who trusts his stroke and his read.

Confidence with the putter is something that has to be earned, as opposed to just happening upon a nice stroke, so one win doesn’t suddenly make him a brilliant putter again, but he will take great self-belief from the way he wielded the short blade and he will be able to build on that.

Those aspects are just his game, and Tiger was always about more than that. People used to speak of the ‘aura’, but many argued that given his trials and tribulations over the lsat 2 years or so, people would no longer be afraid of him, he had become human.

There may be elements of truth to that, but up until now, part of the reason players may not have feared him as much is because he wasn’t playing as well as he is now.

On Sunday, Tiger Woods was the only man in the last eight groups to shoot under par on the day. His closest rivals seemed to crumble. But did they really crumble mentally, or was it that Woods was playing so well that he just made it seem as though that was the case?

Either way, he seemed to have a real sense of confidence and self belief about what he was doing and he never looked like things were getting out of control.

It was a shame Graeme McDowell got off to such a bad start with a double-bogey, having found a terribly unlucky lie in a greenside bunker. The TV coverage reminded us of G-Mac getting one over Woods at the Chevron World Challenge in 2010, and many believed with that win in mind that McDowell could get the better of Woods.

The Northern Irishman did his best to claw his way back after his unfortunate start, but even McDowell himself admitted afterwards that he “got beaten by the better many on the day.”

Augusta now beckons and we may well be in for the showdown we’ve all been waiting for – Rory vs Tiger. McIlroy has to be pleased that the man who he idolised for so long  is now going to be his fiercest competitor.

It’s going to be one hell of a tournament, and no better setting for it all to unfold than Augusta National.