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Desert form gives Tiger much to ponder

Tiger Woods had something of a learning experience in the desert © Getty Images

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Tiger Woods learned a lot from his performance in Abu Dhabi last week - some of it good, some of it bad.

He now knows, if he wasn't confident before, that he is absolutely capable of playing golf somewhere close to the best he has ever produced - a standard still much better than the great majority of those he is competing with. On Saturday he played near flawless golf from tee to green, something that he will not have been the only one to notice.

What he won't be so confident of, however, is whether he still has that winning instinct - what the Americans like to call being 'clutch'. Woods has led three of his last five tournaments after 54 holes (Abu Dhabi, Chevron, Australian Open) yet has won just one of those - the one with fewest rivals vying for his crown.

Related to that, another thing Tiger learned, although he probably was aware of it deep down on his various returns to competitive action in 2011, is that the quality of his opponents is stronger - in depth as much as anything - than it ever was during his prime. It's not just prodigiously-talented stars like Rory McIlroy who can beat him (and don't fear him), it is also players casual fans might characterise as 'journeyman' - like Robert Rock.

Rock may have won on Sunday, but it remains to be seen how he would have coped had Woods been able to find a fairway (or a green) and engineer himself a halfway realistic birdie chance. The Englishman's wobble at the last, when the hard work appeared to have been done, suggests he may just have crumbled if a suddenly wayward Woods had better turned the screw.

After a solid first three days, Woods scrambling display in round four shows he still isn't quite on top of everything just yet.

"You know, I just felt I was just a touch off," Tiger assessed after his finish. "I said a couple of the balls were going further than I thought they normally would. A couple of my 3 woods went about 320 and a couple of my iron shots, 8 iron from 180 and numbers I don't normally hit. So got to kind of reassess that and try to figure that out.

"I didn't win. I was right there with a chance, and just didn't get it done today."

Rockin' Robert

Robert Rock didn't crumble © Getty Images

• Robert Rock's victory at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship didn't exactly end in style - it was something of a limp finish - but that shouldn't distract from an impressive overall round of golf.
• The Englishman held firm to see off the game's two biggest stars, Woods and McIlroy, and did so with back nine birdies on two of the hardest holes on the course. Rock had hinted he was in form - he has finished inside the top 12 in his last four tournaments - but this was still unchartered territory for him.
• His surprised post-round comments hinted that belief might have been the one thing holding him back slightly in the past - hopefully now he knows he can beat anyone on Sunday in a big tournament, his career will go from strength-to-strength. A Ryder Cup wildcard?

Nevertheless, he - and, by extension, his fans - can take heart from his manner this week.

Woods seems to share one illuminating trait with Chelsea striker Didier Drogba (bear with us, this comparison may not have been drawn before). Drogba, for all his talent as a footballer, makes it easy for us to read his emotional state by how he acts on the pitch. When he is happy with the situation at the club and his importance within the team - as he was most notably during Carlo Ancelotti's title-winning season in 2009-10 - he is rarely riled by opposition players and almost never exaggerates injuries or emphasises fouls.

When he is slightly unsettled or uncertain, however, it is a different story - the Ivory Coast international begins diving with greater regularity, takes tumbles with every tackle and gesticulates wildly and otherwise innocuous decisions and moments. These were the antics that afflicted his early seasons in the Premier League (when he was adjusting), and have filtered back into his game at every juncture where it has looked like the manager no longer has faith in him, or he has simply stopped scoring so regularly.

All of which is to say ... Tiger Woods can sometimes be similar. The master of guarded answers in the press centre, the American isn't so good at hiding his emotions on the course. When he was in his prime, when he felt most invincible, he never hit a bad shot - errant strikes were the result of some external force, be it a (suddenly apparent) poor lie or random gust of wind. When he was working through problems, both on and off the course, that attitude changed radically - bad shots were his fault (How many times did he howl "Dammit, TIGER!" in anger?) and the frustration was his to bear.

In Abu Dhabi, it was the former Tiger back on display - with quizzical looks at the environment trotted out after every missed fairway and botched approach. He knows his swing is back, even if a couple of adjustments are still needed with his distance control.

As a result, the 14-time major champion is onto the next phase of his revival. For so long with Phil Mickelson as his most prominent rival, now another challenger has emerged. Despite being drawn to play with the Northern Irishman for the first 36 holes, it was illuminating that Woods chose to play nine holes in practice with Rory McIlroy on Tuesday.

While both men get on surprisingly well, it is impossible not to read more into the situation. McIlroy is Woods most obvious prey, and to overwhelm he needs to stalk him - to learn about his game and gain some insight into his mentality.

McIlroy, however, is not scared of Woods. While Rock may carry the vestiges of intimidation from Woods' dominant era (an era Rock watched much of from a pro-shop in Litchfield), McIlroy has never seen him as someone impossible to beat, but rather a player whose achievements should be emulated.

Woods knows he is back - although he is no longer sure if that winning edge remains. That may concern him, but not unduly - he'll believe it will return, whatever the reality might be.

What will he have made of McIlroy's impressive game and complete lack of fear, however?

Alongside the fear of an injury reoccurrence, that might just be one thing that now keeps Tiger up at night.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.