ACE GOLF UPDATE Woods scores another Tiger-like come-from-behind win at Match Play

"I just kept saying I could win in regulation," said Woods, who had a back-nine score of 6-under-par 30 despite a bogey. "That's what I've always done, even if I'm 2-down with three to go or 3-down with five to go or whatever it may be.


"I've been in that situation a lot of times. I always say I can win in regulation. It doesn't mean that you do, but you have to believe that you can. And today was one of those lucky times where everything just happened to turn my way at the right time."

Woods, who has won four straight official events worldwide, survived on a day that was again marked by "upsets." He first made a name for himself nationally by pulling off these kinds of match play comebacks at the U.S. Amateur. In 1994, at the TPC-Sawgrass, he trailed Kuehne by six holes in the 36-hole match and rallied to win 1-up. Two years later at Pumpkin Ridge, he won his third straight Amateur when he came from 5-down against Steve Scott. In that match, he was 2-down with three to play and won in 38 holes.

"I heard it was just like how he used to win the U.S. Amateur," said Arron Oberholser, who defeated Mike Weir, 3 and 1, and will be Woods' next opponent. "He's been doing that stuff since he was 14 years old."

Woods struggled for most of the day. He hit his first tee shot out of bounds, and made bogeys at the ninth and 13th holes to allow Holmes to win with pars.

The comeback began at the 14th hole, where Woods drained a 14-footer to pull within two. He made another birdie at the 15th, although it didn't matter because Holmes had already bogeyed the hole by three-putting, his lone mistake on the back side. Then Woods made a 22-footer for another birdie at the 16th to tie, before rolling in the 36-foot eagle putt at the 17th that gave him his first lead of the day.

"You're playing the best player in the world," said Holmes, who three weeks ago got his second PGA Tour victory when he defeated Phil Mickelson in a sudden-death playoff at the FBR Open. "I got 3-up with four or five to play and I was like, 'Let's not do anything stupid here. Make him make birdies and make him beat you if he's going to do it.' And he did. He started making a ton of putts. There's not much you can do when he played 5- or 6-under in the last four or five holes. What do you do?"

One thing he could have done was make an 8-footer for birdie at the 18th. Woods had missed the green short, and chipped up for a conceded par. Holmes, after a 347-yard drive, had just 90 yards to the pin and wedged close for a tying birdie, but the putt broke off to the left.

"I'm a little frustrated," Holmes said. "I really thought I'd made that putt right there. And I hit a good putt, we just misread it. … You have to give it up to him. He struggled a little bit early in the round, then made every putt he looked at when he needed to. That's why he's the best."

And now he faces another player who's considered a huge underdog. Oberholser is playing for the first time this year after recovering from a shoulder injury. His victory over Weir was his first official round of 2008.

Oberholser, who like Woods grew up in California, has rarely played with the world's No. 1 golfer. They have never been paired in a PGA Tour event, and Oberholser had to think long and hard about the last time they were in the same group -- it was at a college tournament in 1996, when Woods was a sophomore at Stanford and Oberholser a junior at San Jose State.

"The guy has proven that he is so much better than the rest of us when he's on -- including the next best player in the world," Oberholser said. "For a guy like myself, even though I'm the 33rd-ranked player in the world, the gap between me and him seems so big, because he's so much more experienced than I am in just about every facet of the game. We're the same age, but golfwise he's about 60, mentally. He's seen it all, done it all at a very young age. And it's helped him progress further and faster than his peers."

And yet it still took a miracle finish for him to take care of Holmes.

Bob Harig is a frequent contributor to ESPN.com. He can be reached at BobHarig@gmail.com

ACE GOLF UPDATE TIGER WOODS

Winner of 5 straight, Woods needs 6 matches in a row to win WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship.

I coulden't bet against him.

ACE GOLF UPDATE The 10 greatest seasons in golf history

1. Byron Nelson, 1945
The numbers are still staggering, more than 60 years later. Byron Nelson won a record 18 PGA Tour events in 1945, including 11 in a row, all while beating up on Hall of Fame opponents like Ben Hogan, Sam Snead and Jimmy Demaret. Contrarians are quick to point out that he won only one major that year, but that's only because there was one played. Nelson won the PGA Championship, then a match play format, beating Gene Sarazen, Mike Turnesa, Denny Shute, Claude Harmon and Sam Byrd along the way.


2. Tiger Woods, 2000
Tiger Woods' 2000 season is the benchmark by which all other golf campaigns in the modern era, including those of Woods himself, are now compared. He set or tied 27 PGA Tour records while winning nine of 20 starts, but here's the scariest proposition: It could have been so much better. Woods finished fifth at the Masters (the only major he didn't win that year) despite carding a triple-bogey and double-bogey in the opening round and was runner-up at the prestigious Players Championship, Tour Championship and WGC-Match Play Championship.

3. Bobby Jones, 1930
No player has won the modern Grand Slam, but Bobby Jones did clinch the antiquated version of all four major titles in one season, winning the U.S. and British opens and U.S. and British amateurs in 1930. A career amateur, Jones retired from competitive golf at the end of that season, saying at the time that winning championships "is something like a cage. First you are expected to get into it and then you are expected to stay there. But of course, nobody can stay there."

4. Ben Hogan, 1953
Score one for achievement over consistency with this selection. Sure, Ben Hogan's 1946 season included 13 victories, but it is the '53 campaign for which he is best remembered. Just four years removed from a life-threatening car accident, Hogan competed in only seven events and won five of them, including three majors. Why didn't he win the fourth? Because at the time, the PGA Championship overlapped with the British Open.

5. Annika Sorenstam, 2002
Annika Sorenstam was never better than in 2002, when she carded 11 LPGA titles, three second-place finishes and three thirds, finishing in the top 10 in 20 of 23 starts. (She also won both international tourneys she competed in, as well.) During the season, Ms. 59 set or tied 20 LPGA records and won her fourth major championship, successfully defending her Kraft Nabisco title.

6. Ryan Moore, 2004
Before 2004, only three men had won the U.S. Amateur and NCAA individual championship in the same year -- a trio of guys named Jack Nicklaus, Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods. Ryan Moore not only joined them four years ago, he one-upped 'em, also winning the U.S. Amateur PubLinks, Western Amateur, Sahalee Players Championship and four other titles.

7. Mickey Wright, 1963
We can debate which of Mickey Wright's seasons really belongs on this list. Is it the 1961 campaign, during which she won 10 titles and three majors? Or '63, when she posted 13 wins and two majors (including the Western Open, then considered a major)? I'll take the latter, if only because it was her third of four consecutive years with double-digit victory totals.

8. Jack Nicklaus, 1972
You didn't think we'd get through this list without an entry from Jack Nicklaus, did you? While the Golden Bear has many seasons that could be nominated (he won multiple major titles in five different years), he gets the nod for his 1972 campaign, during which he won the initial two legs of the Grand Slam and five other events.

9. Arnold Palmer, 1960
Wherever Jack's name is found, Arnold Palmer's won't be too far behind. In fact, Arnie's 1960 season is eerily similar to that of Nicklaus in '72. Palmer won eight times that year, claiming the Masters by one stroke over Ken Venturi and the U.S. Open by two over Nicklaus.

10. Lorena Ochoa, 2001-02
Lorena Ochoa's eight-win LPGA season in 2007 helped her rise to No. 1 in the world, but it may have paled in comparison to her amateur exploits in 2001-02. In 10 college tournaments at the University of Arizona, she won eight, including seven in a row, and finished second in the other two. After turning pro in May, she played in 10 Futures Tour events, winning three to top the money list and earn her LPGA Tour card.


Jason Sobel is the ESPN.com golf editor.

JOHN DALY Says Never hit a shot without it

Never, ever hit a shot without going through your pre-shot drill. Not on the practice range, and certainly not on the golf course either. Your pre-shot drill is critically important to your golf game because it focuses your mind on all the keys to putting a good swing on the ball. Here's mine:

(1) Stand behind my ball and set my target line. Mr. Harvey Penick said it best: "Take dead aim."

(2) Visualize my shot soaring through the air exactly on line and trajectory that feels best for the situation.

(3) Walk up to my ball and take my stance: square alignment, feet parallel to target line.

(4) Check my ball position: off inside left heel for driver, more towards the center as the club I'm using gets shorter.

(5) Check my upper body: arms hanging straight down from shoulder, hands in perpendicular line with chin and ground.

(6) Check my ball position by imagining a line straight up at a 90-degree angle from the ground: if it touches inside my chin, it's too close; outside my forehead, too far away.

(7) Check my grip: the V's formed by my thumbs and first fingers are pointing just right of my chin.

(8) Look/Waggle. Look down the target line, then back at my ball, and waggle my club head over it. Four looks, three waggles. No waggle after fourth look. Time to let 'er rip.

(9) Exert slight (slight!) increase in grip pressure on fourth look. I'm reluctant to include this, because I've made such a big deal of you relaxing your grip. But for me, an ever-so-slight increase in grip pressure is my way of saying it's time to get down to business. You know, Grip It and Rip It.

As I said, that's my pre-shot drill. Looks like it takes forever, but it really doesn't, you will soon learn to do it without thinking but one must always remember to do it. And while I might shorten my pre-shot drill some with middle- and short-irons, I always follow it to the letter when I hit driver. You don't have to copy it. Prefer three looks and two waggles? Two and one? Be my guest. It all depends on what you're comfortable with.

Just don't try to get away with, say, ten looks and nine waggles. If you were to do that at the Lion's Club in Dardanelle (Ark.), I'd have to get someone to politely ask you to remove your butt from the course -- unless your playing partners hadn't already come up the side of your head with a 2-iron.

But whatever mix you settle on, go through your pre-shot drill every time. Trust me -- grooving your pre-shot drill will help your groove your golf swing.

John Daly is a five-time PGA Tour champion, including the 1991 PGA Championship and 1995 British Open.