Tiger Woods's recovery 'process' faces Phil Mickelson test at Doral

Another week, another tournament, another step in what Tiger Woods fondly calls a "process" but which his growing army of sceptics prefer to call a slump. It has been 16 months since the former world No1 won a golf tournament, eight months since he started to overhaul his swing under the guidance of a Canadian coach called Sean Foley and two weeks since his first-round defeat in the World Match Play Championship at the hands of Thomas Bjorn – a nadir for Woods, perhaps, but a field day for the critics. Leading the charge has been Johnny Miller, the former Open champion and now the pre-eminent television golf analyst in the United States, who unwisely drew a parallel between the decline of Woods's career and that of Mike Tyson. "He [Miller] is entitled to his opinion and he certainly has a lot of them," Woods said on the eve of the WGC Cadillac Championship at Doral, the second of the year's world golf championships. Towards the temperate end of the critical scale, there has been a more general scepticism about the "process" to which Woods has committed himself. Why try to change his swing once again, especially when the consequences appear to have been so disastrous? It is not just that his results since last autumn have been bad but that he has shown so little tangible improvement since committing himself to Foley's ideas. If anything, his game appears to have regressed, especially when it comes to chipping and putting. Once deadly, he has become distinctly average. "I was questioned after the '97 Masters: 'Why would you change your swing?' And that was for a couple of years there. And 'Why would you leave Butch [Harmon]?'; and 'Why would you leave Hank [Haney]?'" Woods said. "I've been through these periods, and they all have been challenging because they have all been hard because I've had to learn different philosophies and different motions. Changing a motor pattern just takes time. It just takes a lot of [repetition]." But if repetition holds the key then why is this week's tournament only his fourth appearance of the year? "Well, because I have a family. I'm divorced. If you've been divorced with kids, then you would understand," Woods snapped back. This was a telling insight into the changed circumstances of his personal life but it was all too brief. One question later he was immersed once again in his beloved "process". "It is fun, especially when you're seeing signs of [improvement] and I'm seeing some really good signs. Unfortunately, I just haven't been able to carry it to the golf course yet at a consistent level. I hit spurts of it where it's really good and then I lose it for a while. I just have to keep working. At times it is tough, but it's pretty fun." Still, there comes a time when the fun has to end and the winning has to start. Woods, naturally, would never be so bold as to make a prediction but, in normal times, this week in Florida would represent a great chance to enhance his record of 16 world golf championship victories. For one thing, he has won three times before on Doral's Blue Monster course, near Miami. Clearly, he likes the place. He also likes the heat of competition, especially when it pits him against his old rival Phil Mickelson. For years the PGA Tour kept apart the two behemoths of modern-day American golf but not this week. There is a new ratings-boosting, attention-drawing policy in place and so Woods and Mickelson, along with Graeme McDowell, will play together for the first two rounds of a regular season tournament for the first time since 1998. "We don't get to do it very often. It should be fun," Woods said. What he did not say is that Mickelson's presence should also give him extra motivation to turn a process into something more tangible. Like a victory.