Tiger Woods Proves He's Back with Impressive 2013 Masters Tournament

Entering the 2013 Masters Tournament, all eyes were on Tiger Woods. Woods had recently reclaimed the world No. 1 ranking by winning three of the five PGA Tour tournaments that he participated in during the 2013 season.

Even as he failed to take home the green jacket, Tiger proved he's back with a superb performance at the Masters.

Leading up to the Master, Woods had pieced together two consecutive victories during the month of March. That includes a win at the WGC-Cadillac Championship and another at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

Two months earlier, Woods won the Farmers Insurance Open.

With this in mind, there was good reason for the belief that Woods would be in contention at the Masters—as if his past wasn't good enough.

Woods, a four-time Masters champion, appeared to have finally overcome the controversy that had damaged his play for so long. After failing to win a single tournament in 2011, Woods matched his 2012 win total in just three months.

Woods' performance at the Masters was further encouragement.

Top-Five Finish

When you're a legend like Tiger Woods is, anything short of a victory at a major tournament is considered failure. The fact of the matter is, a golfer who has struggled for so long needs a taste of momentum.

Finishing fourth at The Masters is a great way to build such.

Woods finished 40th at the 2012 Masters Tournament, which was a sign of where he was as a golfer. After the turmoil that ruined his media perception, Woods appeared the have lost the warrior's mentality that made him so dangerous.

Little by little, we've seen it come back.

In typical red-shirt fashion, Woods sank four birdies during the final 10 holes at Augusta. This would have been enough to win most times out, but Tiger was coming off of a controversially poor second round and a weak front nine in the fourth.

In a change from what we've seen in recent years, Tiger didn't fall apart when things failed to go his way.

Mental Strength

In recent years, the most common theme with Tiger Woods is that when things got bad, they just kept on getting worse. This was both applicable in the media and on the golf course, as Woods failed to respond to adversity in the proper manner on the greens.

This led to rounds in which one bogey led to multiple mishaps—not this time.

Woods opened up the 2013 Masters with a 70, thus bringing him to two under par. During the second round, he sank three birdies and two bogeys for a score of 71, thus reaching three under par for the tournament.

Or so it seemed.

Woods was controversially penalized two strokes for what proved to be an illegal drop. In turn, Woods' score was brought down to one under par.

In previous tournaments, this would have spelled the end for Woods' confidence—not this time. This time around, we saw the Tiger of old.

Woods responded with a third round 70, sinking five birdies to offset three bogeys. Woods responded with yet another 70 during the fourth round.

More importantly, Woods overcame two missed birdie opportunities and two early bogeys to close out the Masters in dominant fashion—something more important for his confidence than a victory.