The championship, set to take place at Quail Hollow Club, will feature many top golfers but without the inclusion of the world number 1 – Tiger Woods as he seeks an extended break after the Masters.

Tiger Woods usually gives himself a three week break after the first major of the year to recuperate; however there’s been a slight change in scheduling for this year’s event meaning that it’s only two weeks left after the Masters as opposed to three. Woods’s agent, Mark Steinberg explained that “Tiger has tremendous respect for Johnny Harris, Kym Hougham and the tournament but the tour schedule is the overriding factor this year.”

Only the Zurich Classic of New Orleans and the RBC Heritage will take place during the time period between Masters and the Wells Fargo Championship. Steinberg continued to say that Tiger Woods only recently made the decision to drop out of the Wells Fargo Championship.

“He had been looking at it for a bit and, post-Masters, he finally got his head around it.”

Woods was victorious at Quail Hollow six years ago, but he has failed to make the cut on the last two occasions – in 2010 and 2012. A leg injury however, ruled him out of the 2011 championship.

Defending champion Rickie Fowler, along with Rory McIlroy, Phil Mickelson, Nick Watney, Hunter Mahan, Zach Johnson, Webb Simpson, Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter, Dustin Johnson, Bubba Watson and Lee Westwood will all be in the field for this year’s much anticipated Wells Fargo Championship. World No. 2 Rory McIlroy is a clear favourite for the odds makers; however websites like http://freebets.com can help you get some great deals for the latest PGA Tour event in North Carolina.

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But I think the question on everyone’s lips is: Can Tiger win a major championship? He has been very close over the last 5 years, but he has yet to break the 5 year drought to add to the 14 majors he has already won in his illustrious career. Tiger is still looking to continue to chase down Jack Nicklaus’s 18 major titles.

Tiger will not play now until the Masters where he will continue his battle with Rory Mcilroy for the world number one spot. Surely Rory won’t be happy that he has been knocked off top spot after his longest spell as the world number one.

Tiger Woods has already this season earned $3,787,600 from career earning and has taken his PGA Tour wins to 77, lying second in all time PGA tour wins, 5 behind Sam Snead on 82. If Tiger continues in this rich vein of form he could easily overturn that deficit by the end of the year with 3 wins in 5 appearances, a 60% conversion rate.

Tiger spoke of his return to the world number one spot “It’s a by-product of perseverance and patience. I’ve won some tournaments in the last couple of years, as a consequence I’ve moved up. I’m pleased with the way I’m playing.”. I think the most worrying thing for his rivals is the way in which he played his current form down.

Tiger didn’t reveal much when asked about his chances for the Masters “It’s the next event I play.” But he did reveal “It’s been a few years since I felt this good. It has been years since I have hit the ball this consistently week in, week out. I’ve been hitting it pure and made my share of putts. Stricks [Steve Stricker] helped me out at Doral and I have managed to carry that on.”

Woods only hit 60% of fairways in his final round at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, but his recovery play ensured he went on to win the championship. Woods was 1st in gaining shots on the greens which is something that we were use to seeing a couple of years back when he made pressure puts on a regular basis.

Woods who only missed the cut by one shot thought he had a free drop on the fifth hole only to later find out that it shouldn’t have been a free drop and therefore his bogey 5 was changed to a triple bogey 7. Initially Tiger had called playing partner Martin Kaymer over to examine the lie within the weeds.

“I called Martin over to verify the ball was embedded. We both agreed, but evidently it was not sand,” Woods said.

“It’s tough. I didn’t get off to a very good start and I fought. I got it back.”

A lot of the talk at the beginning of the week was the newly sponsored Nike member Rory Mcilroy. The poor performance was put down to the clubs by the media. However Rory was clear that the clubs did not result in his poor performance saying  ”I’m not here to talk about my [Nike] contract, I’m here to talk about my golf,”.

“I knew it was going to be a tough week. I hit the ball really well in Dubai last week, but it just got worse for some reason.

“I’m very disappointed. You never want to get off to a poor start, but I’ve got to realise it’s only the start of the season.” Rory added.

Tiger Woods will now be back in the States to play in the Farmers Insurance Open which will be held from the 24th January until the 27th January looking for an improvement on his performance in Abu Dhabi .

As one of only eight from the top 50 ranked golf players, Woods’ appearance at the $6.1 million tournament shone some attention on the action. Jason Dufner, one of the 48 players competing in the CIMB this year, said that the 14 times major title champion brought a boost to the event, which is set to become part of the 2013 PGA Tour’s Fedex Cup schedule.

“I think it’s a great thing for this event and for the country of Malaysia to have a player of Tiger’s calibre come and fit this event into his schedule,” said Dufner. “As players we appreciate it because it makes the field and the event attract a little more media. You get more spectators out here. He tends to pull in spectators. A lot of people want to see him play some golf.”

Whilst many other CIMB events lacked the appearance of spectators, hundreds of fans turned out for the tournament’s pro-am on the 18^th green between Woods and Najib Razak, the Malaysian Prime Minister.

“There is no doubt about it, when Tiger is in the field it just makes the event better overall,” Dufner told reporters.

Ranked 119^th player in the world, India’s Gaganjeet Bhullar is enjoying the opportunity to play alongside one of golf’s biggest stars. “Tiger Woods is a legend, and a living legend,” he said. “What he has done, no one else has done in this generation. I think all of Asia is getting excited to see him this week.”

Though Woods was favourite to win the event, having being given odds of 7/1 after the British Open, no one could deny that one of the world’s greatest golfers was indeed on form at this years WGC-Bridgestone Invitational.

Finishing so put the current world number 3 into an eight place tie with eight other players.

Interestingly, this finish was his best since 2009 when he won his seventh Bridgestone title. Woods is currently searching for his 75th PGA win and his 15th major and is expecting to focus the entirety of his attention on next week’s PGA Championship:

“I feel very good about where I’m at. I’m excited about it.”

If Tiger wins at next weeks event, he will pocket a total of $1,445,000 in addition to the $128,750 he received at this year’s invitational.

Him along with 76 other players, representing a total of 18 countries shall be competing at the prestigious Firestone Country Club in Ohio on Thursday.

As the event is one without a cut, even the last place finisher shall receive a generous check from the event.

As it the event is invitation only, place can earn their place by;

By winning the event seven times over a period of thirteen years, Tiger is no stranger to the podium at Bridgestone.

To most however, this comes as no surprise despite Woods’ testing final day performance at The Open Championship where the pro got into difficulty on the 6th.

One surprise in ways of odds however is those given to Ernie Else who was listed with 40/1, the same odds given to him for The Open.

Other odds include:

Luke Donald 15/1

Lee Westwood 15/1

Rory Mcilroy 20/1

Phil Mickelson 25/1

Adam Scott 25/1

Although the finish helped Woods climb up the rankings, he has stated that he his more interested in winning majors than climbing the rankings.

In search of his fifteenth major win (and his first since 2008), Woods stated at the end of The Open:

‘It’s part of golf. We all go through these phases – some people it lasts entire careers, others are a little bit shorter. Even the greatest players to ever play have all gone through little stretches like this.’

Things could have gone better for Woods and the master did look quite confident until the 6th hole on the last day where he found himself stuck in a rather troublesome bunker; in the end finishing the hole on a double bogey, resulting in an uphill battle to win the championship. Tiger eventually finished the championship on 227, -3 under par.

With that in mind, Woods will now be eyeing up the trophy at at Kiawah Island on August 9-12 on the US PGA Championship, though it is feared that most eyes will be back in Britain – at the Olympics.

With reports of promising training sessions last week, some even compared glimpses of yesterdays performance to those of his peak period when Tiger would roam the greens, destroying any competition that stood in his path.

From the very first hole, Woods looked comfortable on the green after finishing it with a put from ten feet. Holes four, six and seven could also be claimed as birdies – the only bogey was held at the fifteenth. Woods said:

“I got off to a sweet start there. I kept hitting it well, but my pace was off on the greens. I only hit one putt that was off line. But every putt was right on my start lines. I just needed to hit the putts a little bit harder.”

Winning this competition would make it a fifteenth major  for woods, his fourth Open Championship and first major win since 2008.

December 30, 1975: Born

Eldrick T. Woods (Tiger) was born and raised in Cypress, California to his Thai mother Kultida and father Earl Woods who was a retired Lieutenant Colonel in The U.S Army.
His ancestry is that off a quarter Chinese, a quarter African, and a quarter Thai whilst also being an eighth American and an eighth Dutch.

1978: First TV Appearance

His golfing skills were spotted early in his lifetime; at the age of just three he was featured on the Mike Douglas Show. He played golf alongside Bob Hope, and immediately the world saw that this kid has pure and natural golfing talent.
In the following year at the age of just four he shot a round of 48 over nine holes, this was in Cypress, California at the Navy Golf Club.

1984: Won His First Junior Title

At the age of nine, he won the Optimist International Junior World Golf Championships. This was his first junior title, but the first of many. He goes on to win the same event 6 times out of the next 7 years.

1996: Turns Professional

At the age of 21 he made the decision to drop out of Stanford University to become a Golf Professional. In the same year he has his first PGA Tour win in the Las Vegas Invitational, Oldsmobile Classic. He was then voted as the Sports Illustrated Sportsman Of The Year, and subsequently signed endorsements with Nike ($40 Million) and Titleist ($20 Million).

1997: Becomes The Youngest Ever Winner Of The Masters

Within two years of turning professional Tiger Woods was voted the PGA Player Of The Year. This was after PGA Tour wins at the Motorola Western, Mercedes Championships and the GTE Byron nelson Golf Classic. His biggest achievement was of course winning The Masters, becoming the youngest player to do so, whilst also becoming the first of African/Asian descent.

1998: Becomes World Number One

After a fantastic first few years as a professional, Tiger is already ranked as the number one player in the world. Just 23 years old, Tiger has taken the golfing world by storm.

2000: Wins His First Grand Slam

2000 is a big year for Tiger as he is again voted PGA Player Of The year for the third time, and wins seven PGA Tour titles. He wins the British open by a massive eight strokes to become the youngest player to have won the Grand Slam, his score of 269 is the best ever recorded at St. Andrews whilst also being the lowest par score at a major tournament.

2002: Becomes Youngest Ever Golfer To Win Seven PGA Majors

This year’s he again wins the Masters, defending his title from the previous year. He then breaks yet another record by becoming the youngest in history to knock up seven PGA majors.

2004:  Tiger Loses The Number One Spot For The First Time

Although this year he broke another record by becoming the first pro golfer to amass $40 million careers earnings, he loses his number one rankings to Vijay Singh. He has the record for the longest period at number one with 264 weeks. He got married to Elin Nordegren in Barbados in a ceremony costing $1.5 million.

2005: One Of Only Two Golfers To Win Every Major Twice

He finally climbs out of a slump by winning his first PGA tournament in a year and a half at the Buick International. He then wins the Masters for the fourth time in his career and the British Open for the second time.

2006: Tigers Father Dies Of Cancer

He wins the Buick Invitational for the second year running; however 2006 was a difficult year for Tiger. Tigers father Earl Woods, who was responsible for guiding his career died of cancer in May. Just one month later he failed to make the cut in the U.S Open.
Things picked up though and he won the British Open for the third time and made it into the record books for becoming the youngest player to win 50 PGA tournaments.

2008: Wins His Sixth Buick Invitational

The year starts superbly but ends abruptly through injury. He starts off by winning his 6th Buick Invitational, then going on to win the U.S Open in June for his third win of this event. However his season was cut short as his left knee required reconstructive cruciate ligament surgery. He pulled out of the remainder of the season.

2009: Takes A Break From Golf To Try And Save His Marriage

The most controversial year in his glittering career started with him winning his 70th PGA Tournament, taking down the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational.
Controversy struck after a one-car accident, he hit a tree after reversing out of his driveway. Media reports soon started to emerge that the reason for the accident was that he and his wife were arguing at the time.

Soon after, many women started to leak their kiss and tell stories about having affairs with Tiger. He finally admitted to being unfaithful in December and announced he was going to take a long break from Golf to concentrate on becoming a better man for his wife, his children and for himself.

2012: Wins His First PGA Tour Event In Two And A Half Years

After the worst period in his career, Tiger finally managed to get his name at the top of a leader board, winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill. With one of his favourite events coming up, The Masters, he will be hoping to put his past few years behind him to carry on doing what he does best.