Tiger Woods Honda Classic: Woods Needs Vintage Tiger to Show Up in Final Round

Tiger Woods shot one under par in the third round of the Honda Classic today, but it will take much more than that to compete with Tom Gillis or Rory McIlroy on Sunday in Florida.

Gillis and McIlroy are set to reach double-digits under par heading into Sunday and Woods will tee off tomorrow at two under par, a good seven or eight shots behind the probable leaders.

For Woods to compete for the lead on Sunday, it will take a vintage Tiger final round to achieve that and judging by the way we have seen him play in previous final rounds over the past few months, it would seem like that is very far from likely.

However, if we have learned anything from Woods over the years, it is to never count him out of a tournament. And we will still be watching for that Woods' surge up the leaderboard tomorrow afternoon.

But Woods has yet to show off the vintage Woods that we were so used to seeing previous to the end of 2009.

Currently, we are used to him posting decent rounds that keep him in the tournament—not control it. That is the difference these days with Woods.

He has yet to post a significantly large round that shocks a crowd. However, he will need one Sunday if he wants to stop the likes of McIlroy, Gillis, Justin Rose or Keegan Bradley from stealing the spotlight from him once again.

We keep waiting for Woods' putter to click, his iron game to fully come around and his final-round mentality to switch into gear, yet time after time something happens that throws him and his game off.

If we were to see the vintage Woods back and rising up the leaderboard on a Sunday, it would be with McIlroy going for the No. 1 world golf ranking and Bradley continuing to compete every week.  

Woods would do it just to spite them and steal the spotlight away.