Tiger Woods stays steady as flashes of magic suggest there’s more to come | Andy Bull

Golf's greatest showman shows he is ready to compete against all odds after a solid if mostly unspectacular start

There were about 50,000 people at Augusta National for the start of the Masters: fans, media, members, stewards, caddies, cooks, camera crew and all the other support staff, and on Thursday morning almost every last one of them was asking the same sort of question. Plenty had come along to the 1st tee at 11am to find out the answer, too. The dogged ones had staked a front-row spot first thing that morning. Everyone else was craning their necks and popping up on their tiptoes, jockeying to try to find a line of sight that would allow them to catch a flash of Tiger Woods in his shocking pink shirt.

Could Woods still do it? Even Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player were going back and forth after the opening ceremony. Nicklaus wasn't sure. Feeling competitive is different than feeling like you can win," he said after he'd hit the ceremonial tee shot. I mean, I'm sure Tiger will be very competitive this week. But I don't know whether he can win or not. He hasn't played any competition for a long time." It's 508 days, to be exact.