Tiger Woods: Revival Season Will Start with Strong Abu Dhabi Championship Play

The on-course frustrations that have come to define the last two seasons of Tiger Woods' career are going to come to a crashing end in 2012.

That means that not only will Woods win official events in 2012, but he'll also capture one of the season's four majors. And it is all going to start with a strong showing at the Abu Dhabi Championship. 

There is no way to measure how valuable his win at the Chevron World Challenge was. Given the small field and course, it may not seem like much. But what that tournament did was get the winning taste back in his mouth. For a player like Tiger, the impact of that is immeasurable. 

The only proof of that is what Woods tweeted moments after winning. 

If you look at his reaction after making the winning putt, you know that his emotions were genuine. That was a win Woods had to have. 

Tiger now knows that when he plays against fellow touring pros, he can win again. When someone as prolific as Woods goes two years without ever tasting victory, even a small win is huge. 

But more important than the mental part of his game is the physical aspect. Woods is healthy now, which we haven't been able to say since before the 2008 U.S. Open. That means that Woods will play more golf, which is only going to be good for him. 

What we've seen out of Woods over the last two years is good golf, just in short stretches. He would come out and have a good round, or maybe even a good nine, but he couldn't sustain it. In better tournaments, we saw Woods put two or three good rounds together, but he failed to play at least his average game in the other round. 

That is what happens when you don't play a lot. At any level of golf, consistency is only going to come from someone who plays a lot. If you literally take weeks or sometimes months off, you're not going to win tournaments, even if you are Tiger Woods.

But now that he'll be playing more, we're going to see the Tiger that we had grown accustomed to seeing before Thanksgiving of 2009. 

The bounce-back will start this week. We have to be realistic, though—it's not likely to come in the form of a win. Tiger hasn't played competitively since the Chevron World Challenge, and he's going against players who are in a groove. 

Still, he will manage a Top 10 finish. He'll win at least twice before the Masters this year, establishing himself as an even greater threat at Augusta. By the time the final putt drops at the PGA Championship in 2012, Woods will have at least one more major to his name. 

This is the closest thing we've seen to the real Tiger in years. As a result, we're going to get the kind of performance that only the real Tiger can give. 

Follow @mdixon1985 .