Tiger Woods was back winning ways at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill, beating off Graeme McDowell by five shots and Ian Poulter by seven after he posted a final round 70 to win the tournament for the seventh time with an overall score of 275.
Palmer missed Woods' triumph after being taken to hospital due to a blood pressure problem. The 82-year-old had been on the course and had made a television appearance but left before the end. He was kept in hospital overnight for observation.
For Woods it was his first PGA Tour victory for 30 months and the former world No1 is now back to sixth in the rankings after falling outside the top 50 last autumn.
Woods will be chasing his 15th major at Augusta next week but his first since the 2008 US Open. "I am excited, there's no doubt," he said. "It's always fun to get there and play and I'm looking forward to the momentum I've built up here. I still need some work, and it's going to be good to get a week off and work on a few things.
"I enjoyed the progression we made this week. Each day there was a little bit of fine-tuning here and there, and we were able to make those adjustments, which was good, and especially with the conditions getting more difficult on the weekend. I was able to hit some really good shots the last two days, and that's a very good sign going into Augusta.
"It's been a lot of hard work and I'm so thankful for a lot of people helping me out along the way. They all know who they are."
By that he presumably meant Sean Foley, who has helped groove yet another new swing over the past 19 months, and all the physios and medics who have had to work on him.
It was only a fortnight ago that there was concern he might not even be at the Masters after pulling out of the Cadillac Championship suffering from an achilles tendon strain in his left ankle.
McDowell, one behind at the start of the final round, began with a double bogey, but kept things interesting with putts of 45, 51 and 23 feet at the 3rd, 6th and 11th.
Woods came back from a three-putt bogey on the 2nd with four birdies in the next six holes and playing the back nine in 37 was always likely to be good enough on a difficult day when there were only two rounds better than his.
It was the 72nd PGA Tour win of his career and he needs only one more to match Jack Nicklaus. That would leave Sam Snead – 82 between 1936 and 1965 – ahead of him but it is Nicklaus's 18 majors that becomes the focus again.
Few majors have ever had the buildup of this Masters. Rory McIlroy went to world No1 by winning the Honda Classic but Luke Donald took it back a week ago. In between Justin Rose captured the second world championship of the season. Four European victories in a row in the United States had never been achieve and but for Woods it would have happened.
