Tiger Woods' Performance vs. Rory McIlroy Proves That He's Back on Top

Members of the golf world not named Tiger Woods have reason to be terrified.

The fact that he's tied for the third-round lead at the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship is bad enough. Worse is that he played each of the first three rounds with Rory McIlroy, who is the reigning U.S. Open champion and No. 3 golfer in the world. Tiger held up well in that spotlight and did so against McIlroy playing well.

Now, Tiger is in the final pairing, which has Pat Forde of Yahoo Sports excited. 

Indeed, Mr. Forde. But this is not going to be a one-time thing. It is, though, something we'll be seeing well after football season ends. 

We can sit here and look at the fact that Woods is tied for first, but that's not as important as the head-on-head play against McIlroy. McIlroy might be the third-ranked player in the world, but that's more because he doesn't play a full enough schedule to be No. 1. With Woods' fall from grace, McIlroy is the best player in the world.

That Woods is actually outperforming him in the same group is a tremendous confidence boost. Even better is that Tiger spotted McIlroy a head start. McIlroy shot an opening-round 67 against Woods' 70. But here we are 36 holes later and McIlroy is two strokes back. 

What is especially troubling for the rest of the golf world is that Woods isn't entering this tournament on a tremendous roll. Yes, he did win his last tournament, but that was against a small, hand-picked field at a course custom made for Tiger's game. It was also nearly two months ago. 

This is an elite field that includes McIlroy, Luke Donald, Lee Westwood, Graeme McDowell, Charl Schwartzel and Jason Day, just to name a few. The fact that Woods is playing so well against this field on foreign soil is as good of a sign that he's back as anything. 

Woods has struggled against the best players in the world for the last two years. Now he's not only beating the best players when they're playing well, but he's also not making mistakes. Even in a flat first round, Woods didn't make a single bogey—an accomplishment duplicated in the third. 

Over the last two years, how many times have we seen Tiger go on good stretches only to make a few consecutive momentum-halting bogeys? That isn't happening anymore. 

When watching McIlroy and Tiger compete in the same group, it was clear that Tiger was the better player.

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