Charm offensive

Woods warms to the task of taming Carnoustie course

Whenever Tiger Woods smiles at a press conference, a hundred cameras with lightning shutter speeds start clicking, like a swarm of angry cicadas. It happened more than once here at Carnoustie yesterday, as Woods, warming to themes as diverse as two-iron hybrids and Californian grass varieties, let his usual mask of sternness slip.

He looked mellow, happy, at ease. The contrast with the mugshot on file at Jupiter Police Department, showing him haunted and disorientated after his arrest last year for driving under the influence of prescription drugs, could hardly have been more jarring.

All this beaming was not just for the photographers’ benefit. While few would count him among the favourites to win his 15th major this week, Woods has ample cause to be cheerful, from the piecemeal progress of his game to his liberation from a world of back pain.

He might lack the aura that he projected in his pomp in 2005, when he pitched up with a phalanx of security guards in matching polo shirts, but he is at last offering a few rays of human warmth. “There were points when I thought I would never be in this championship again,” he said.

For years, Woods treated his aloofness almost as a professional necessity. One revelation in a recent biography by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian was that his mother, Kultida, helped shape such a mindset. “You have to go for the throat,” she allegedly told him, “because if all friendly, they come back and beat your a--. So you kill them. Take their heart.”

On occasion, he slips back into heart-ripping mode. Only this week, a video has emerged from a recent

Girlfriend: Erica Herman could join Tiger Woods at Carnoustie later this week