“That was momentum at last,” Woods said, “and it made me feel I would be able to keep things going.” The roar went into every corner of the course and returned the rest of the field to their normal work assignment. It could be described as Waiting for Tiger.Yesterday however, the Tiger was unaccountably missing ­ and along with him a whole set of assumptions.Barbra Streisand once described Andre Agassi as a Zen God of sport. What did that make Woods?Until mid-afternoon yesterday simply the greatest, most complete sportsman of the modern age ­ and maybe all time. Tom Watson, who is 53 years of age, has won eight majors and was the one rival who brought a genuine touch of terror to the soul of Jack Nicklaus, said recently: “I watch Tiger and I learn about the game.” Yesterday, he looked as is he had forgotten it all.We can make formidable cases for the supremacy of a battery of epic sportsmen. We can talk about the relentlessness of Bradman; the peerless, sustained quality of Pele; the other-worldly brilliance and panache of Muhammad Ali.But Bradman played his game within the borders of the old British empire.. Pele had a shifting cast of frequently superb assistants… Ali hated to train, and consequently lost some fights he should have won. Woods just outstrips himself from year to year and with an application, and a love of what he is doing, that can only inspire awe.

Yesterday, he was astonishingly vulnerable.He is untouchable by commercial pressure, soaring expectations and even the old racism. His mother, Tida, points out: “It is calm at the centre of a hurricane.” Yesterday, her son was caught in the storm.When Darren Clarke subsided, rather pitifully, on Saturday, you couldn’t help remembering that earlier in the week he overslept when due to share a practice round with Woods. It seemed to say everything about the difference between mere recipients of talent and those who embrace it and work it and push themselves into new terrain of achievement. Clarke once beat Woods in match-play, and it is something he may wish to dine out on for the rest of his sporting life. He can say, after all, that he beat, on one shining, unlikely day, a man from another planet. But maybe he will have to put the boast on the shelf for a little while at least Yesterday, suddenly, it didn’t seem much at all.. Shortly after six o’clock on Saturday as the shadows lengthened on a perfect spring day, Tiger Woods holed a putt from 40 feet at the sixth hole and marched off the green with his fist clenched and arm raised in triumph.

This was the second putt of the day from Woods which ensured the third day at the Masters would be remembered for what happened inside the gates of Augusta National and not outside. With another tap-in birdie at the next, Tiger left himself only four strokes behind Jeff Maggert, who claimed the third-round lead by matching the world No 1’s 66.Much earlier in the day, Woods got up and down from a bunker at the ninth, holing a none-too-pleasant four-footer down the hill in the process, to ensure he made the halfway cut. At that point none of the other 48 players still alive in the event were behind him. By the end of the day only four players were in front of Woods.In his brilliant third round, Woods passed as many people as turned up to support Martha Burk’s campaign for women to be admitted as members of Augusta National. The rally at a site half a mile down the road from the gates of the club attracted fringe elements like an Elvis impersonator and a member of the Ku Klux Klan and far more media than protesters. There were also more police than media and protesters put together.Back on the grounds a dramatic major championship was unfolding. Woods kept alive his streak of consecutive cuts made, now at 102 tournaments, by making the cut on the mark – at five over – for only the fourth time in his career.

Of those who finished on the cut line, only three broke par in the third round, including Justin Rose with a 71. Only Woods broke 70, his scorecard being the only one in the third round not to contain a bogey His 66 matched his third round a year ago. Then he had pulled himself up to tie for the lead and play in the final pairing with Retief Goosen.He could not quite manage that again but he came from a more perilous position. Tiger likes his Saturdays at the Masters, his third round in 1997, a 65, confirming him not just as a prodigy but the genuine article who would eventually win the tournament by 12 strokes.As a player who takes on history as much as his fellow competitors, Woods had his hands full yesterday. In trying to win an unprecedented third consecutive green jacket, Woods would have to be the first player at Augusta to have recovered from an opening score as high as 76 and from 11 strokes behind the leader at the halfway stage. The biggest comeback in a major was from 13 back after 36 holes by George Duncan in the 1920 Open at Royal Cinque Ports in Deal, Kent.No winner of the Masters had come from outside the final pairing for 13 years, while all of Tiger’s eight previous major victories had come with him either leading or tied for the 54-hole lead. Three times before, including the USPGA at Hazeltine last August, he had been in a similar position just behind the leader.One of Tiger’s greatest strengths, however, is that he never gets ahead of himself Winning his third successive Masters was not in his mind.