Peerless Woods still the man in control

Golf's world No 1 seems certain to be voted player of the year again despite not following up his incredible start to the season

At the US Tour Championship at the Champions Club in Houston, the bookend of the official season in America, a topic for discussion over the weekend was the player of the year vote. This was a long discussion only for those with short memories. Tigermania may not have been rampant of late but it reached such a crescendo earlier in the season that the otherwise laudable claims of David Duval, Phil Mickelson and David Toms will once more be denied.

Going into the Tour Championship, Tiger Woods had won only once since the beginning of June. This can lead to conversations verging on the positively Monty Pythonesque. "That Tiger Woods, what has he ever done in 2001?" Well, his fourth successive major victory at the Masters in April was probably the greatest achievement the game has ever seen. "Yes, but apart from that?" He had a streak of five wins in six starts, extended his record lead at the top of the world rankings and won the US money list for the third straight year and for the fourth time in his five years as a professional.

When Steve Redgrave came home from Sydney with a fifth gold medal, no one was asking what he had been doing for the last three years and 51 weeks. For Woods to top his $10m (£6.8m) three-major season in 2000 was always going to be difficult.

After winning the US Open, the Open and the USPGA last year, he started this season with one goal only. Victory at Augusta was all that mattered.

Woods spent the early season tinkering with his game to try to recreate his explosive 1997 Masters victory. He won twice immediately before Augusta – including the US Players Championship, commonly thought of as the "fifth major" – as he made sure his game peaked for the second week in April, and twice soon afterwards. His win at the Memorial in the first week in June was his 23rd in 24 months.

More than anyone else, Woods realised there would be a slowdown. In the heart of the summer, when three majors rush by in 10 weeks, the world No 1 was just enough off his game to be found out on tight tracks such as Southern Hills, in Tulsa, and Royal Lytham.

Though never confirmed, Wood was thought to be suffering from an ankle strain at the US Open, which would have been enough to throw his swing off balance. So far in his career the 25-year-old has not had to contend with major injury but on Thursday at Champions was forced to play through a lower back problem, the curse of all powerful, big-hitters, for the first time.

Though Woods only had one top-10 finish in his previous eight starts – he made it count by winning the NEC World Invitational – he has also not finished worse than 29th. A lean spell for anyone else would involve missing the cut and it remains one of the most astonishing facts of his career that Tiger has only missed the cut once in five years as a pro. On an otherwise dull Friday afternoon at the USPGA Championship, his flirtation with an enforced weekend off became the story.

"I think Tiger pretty much had player of the year wrapped up in April when he won the fourth major in a row," said Duval, the Open champion. "It would take somebody winning two majors to have had a chance. Maybe if I'd won the PGA or something like that, but Tiger's had a great year and it was cemented in April."

Toms, a Tour journeyman until this summer, won twice in addition to his USPGA victory, where he denied Mickelson a first major. The left-hander won only twice but his 10 top-threes were more than anyone else. Unable to catch Woods on the money list, Mickelson missed the Tour Championship to stay at home with his two-week-old daughter.

It is usually a point of etiquette for a tournament's most recent winner to turn up, but Mickelson excused himself from the £3.5m event and then skipped the nappy-changing for a few hours on Saturday night to attend Game 6 of baseball's World Series between the Arizona Diamondbacks, his home team, and the New York Yankees.

Woods is not ready for time off yet and just because the official season is over does not mean there are not more earning opportunities. Later this week Woods heads to China for an exhibition, then to Japan where he and Duval will defend America's World Cup crown, and then to Hawaii for the Grand Slam. Back home he still has the Skins Game and the Williams Challenge, in aid of his own Woods Foundation, to come.

At least it is not as crowded a schedule as this time last year, when he played nine consecutive weeks on four different continents, a run that perhaps contributed to a tired start to this season. Woods got an unexpected break earlier in the autumn when, after the events of 11 September, the AmEx World Championship was cancelled, he withdrew from the Lancôme Trophy and the Ryder Cup was postponed.

Woods, who has always been conscious of his personal security as a highly visible figure, has taken seriously his obligations to play around the world – he is due to go to New Zealand in January – and it is important for the game globally that he does not become as insular as many of his compatriots. The signs are that he will continue to travel.

"All you can do is trust the organisers that they have done their best to make the environment safe, not just for myself but for everyone," he said. "They don't want something happening at their event. They want everyone to enjoy their time and be safe. With that in mind, you just have to go out and live your life and not be afraid to do so.

"Granted we're in a situation right now where that might be a difficult feeling to have at all times, but you are still going to have to go on with your life. There are still a lot of things that I want to accomplish in this sport, off the golf course, friends and family that I enjoy, and you can't have situations like this admonishing the fact that you can't do these things any more.

"Golf is probably the most vulnerable sport there is because the gallery is close to us at all times. On the back of a tee box, they can just touch you. You play in another sporting event, they are not even close to the field. That's one of the things that makes our sport unique and which makes it great, and also makes it a little bit uniquely dangerous as well."

A YEAR OF TWO HALVES

WOODS' RECORD UP TO AND INCLUDING THE MEMORIAL

Tournaments: 12. Wins: 5. Top-10 finishes: 10. Worst finish: 13th.

WOODS' RECORD SINCE THE US OPEN*

Tournaments: 8. Wins: 1. Top-10 finishes: 1. Worst finish: 29th.

*Not including US Tour Championship, due to finish last night