Tiger, Tiger burning bright once again

His career has been defined by superlatives: the youngest player to win all four majors, the biggest earner in golfing history, the man in possession of the world's most insatiable appetite for cocktail waitresses. And once again Tiger Woods has surpassed all expectation. Contrary to F Scott Fitzgerald's assertion that there are no second acts in American life, he is poised to do what appeared way beyond him as recently as last summer: he is set to recover his place as the No?1 golfer in the world. And with that elevation Woods will do something extraordinary even by his standards. He might well give those of us who lost all faith in him legitimate cause to admire once again.

If Woods wins this weekend's Arnold Palmer Invitational tournament at Bay Hill, he will supplant his new best mate Rory McIlroy at the top of golf's driving range. It is a familiar position for him to occupy. After all, he has spent 623 weeks as the best golfer in the world, more than 12 years. But since he collided with a fire hydrant in October 2010, he has looked about as likely to reclaim what was once his sinecure as Joey Barton is to be employed as professor of philosophy at All Souls College Oxford. Such was the all-encompassing trauma of his public humiliation by October 2011 he was not even ranked in the top 50. Out on the course he looked a man who would rather be anywhere else than attempting to hit a ball with a stick. He appeared haunted by the revelations about his extra curricular activity, as if his thoughts were so crowded with shame he could no longer find sufficient brain power properly to compete in such a mentally demanding sport. At every competition he showed how hard it was playing while wearing a hair shirt under his sponsored roll neck.

Latterly, however, signs of Woods's rehabilitation have been arriving as frequently as his female companions once did. He has played a round with President Obama, he contributed selflessly to America's ultimately forlorn Ryder Cup campaign, he has even been seen joshing with his fellow competitors on the practice greens. Tiger Woods graciously acknowledging his peers: that really is something new. This week, he posted on Facebook a snap of him with his new squeeze, the downhill skier Lindsey Vonn. She is such a startling lookalike of his ex-wife Ellen Nordgren (who has signalled that she too has moved on from their failed marriage by dating a billionaire with an even bigger yacht than Tiger's) at first glance you might be mistaken for thinking things were back to how they were before his disgrace. Him with a presentable blonde on his arm who is not being paid by the hour, it is as if the past couple of years never happened.

But what has really accelerated the change in his fortune has been his recovery on the golf course. He has started to accumulate victories with something approaching the narrow-eyed ruthlessness of old. He has looked better and better, seemingly ready at the start of this season to revisit his assault on Jack Nicklaus's record haul of major victories.

Those who have seen him in action recently report a changed man: easy, confident and - given that he was never someone who appeared to be playing the game for enjoyment's sake - almost as if he is taking pleasure in his day job.

And this is where only the cold-hearted could fail to admire what he has done. His recovery has come not by happenstance or good fortune. It has been arrived at through prodigious quantities of hard work, in the gym as much as on the course. He has worked tirelessly on a new swing which reduces the pressure on his crumbling knee and hip joints. More to the point, he has managed to clear his head sufficiently to be able to putt again.

That he has worked so hard is to his enormous credit. It would have been easy to walk away from the game. Indeed there were plenty watching him scuff around for the past two years who would have advised him to do just that. Even without his portfolio of sponsors, he had made enough money to disappear into comfortable obscurity, no longer to twitch in alarm every time he passed a fire hydrant. Instead, he put his head down and worked, ceaseless in his determination to recover his prominence.

From pariah to contender in 30 months. It has been an astonishing act of rehabilitation, proof that - if you put in the hard yards - we fans will forgive almost any discretion. You wonder if, holed up in his lair in Texas, Lance Armstrong is watching.