Just when he looked to be down and out at Bay Hill at the weekend and his winning streak down the drain, he somehow manages to lift his game to winning heights - and, according to him, still without really playing well.

They say great teams are those that can still win, even when they are playing badly. Well, you can say the same thing about Tiger.

After that curving, 24-foot, bombshell putt that blew poor Bart Bryant's hopes out of the window at Bay Hill's watery 18th on Sunday I heard it again:

"This guy must be the luckiest golfer that ever lived," said one of our club's self-appointed experts. at the 19th hole.

Yes," said another, "Lady Luck seems to have taken up a permanent position on his shoulder."

If Gary Player had been around, he would have hotly disputed this line of thought.

No one is sure whether he was responsible for coining the original phrase - "the more I practice, the luckier I get" - but he has certainly made it famous and I have to go along with him.

In fact I've believed in his philosophy for at least half a Century after one of the most sobering experiences of my sporting life - and this one had to do with rugby, not golf.

We had this lanky, awkward wing in our team who was the very antithesis of a 1960s rugby star and looked and acted more like the club funny man, but was reputed to be the luckiest player that had ever walked on a rugby field.

Everything he touched seemed to turn to gold.

When he kicked ahead, the ball invariable bounced awkwardly for his opposition and popped into his hands with no one between him and the tryline.

"There goes Mr Lucky again." they'd say as he crossed for one of his many tries

He also amazed us all with the way he always seemed to in the right place at the right time.

When the ball carrier found himself isolated and needed support, Ronnie would rock up from nowhere.

When up-and unders were bombed behind our lines, he was there to bomb them back with interest.

Yes, lucky Ronnie was always where he was needed - cool, calm and weaving his lucky magic.

I, like too many other of my team-mates, saw him as being blessed with luck rather than skill and never really gave him the credit he deserved.

That was until a fitness run on a little used track one day took me past a 'spill-over' sports field only rarely used by the members of our club because of it's inconvenient position and distance from our clubhouse.

Watched by his girlfriend, he was out there, kicking, passing and working at a variety of skills with two younger, school-going brothers.

Stopping briefly, I asked the girl, "Does he come here often?"

"Almost every day," she said. "He seems to love rugby more than anything else - me included."

And then the bell rang. I saw him for what he really was at last. A highly passionate competitor working hard to be the best - and I made sure my team-mates knew about it so they could appreciate him in a way he deserved.

The great irony of the man was that all too soon he had lost his passion for the then amateur game of rugby and began to direct it towards making money.

I lost contact with him at about that time, but I wasn't at all surprised to hear years later that he had become a very wealthy man - which brings us back to Tiger Woods, soon, I'm told, to be the sporting world's first billionaire.

The World No 1 is not where he is right now on talent alone.

Even the mental strength and winning attitude instilled by his late father Earl wouldn't have been enough to create the golfing phenomenon that is exciting us all right now if an enormous work ethic was not part of the equation.

The same work ethic that sent him back to the practice range for a 'couple of hour' after his rusty-looking opening round at Bay Hill on Thursday and kept him going there until that 'lucky' putt at the last that has kept his six-month winning streak alive.