SIDELINE CUT:THE US MASTERS tournament has such a rich range of stories that nobody seems to have noticed that Tiger Woods has returned to golf packing a set of guns that would earn nods of approval from the Armagh senior football squad.

The world’s number one is wearing heavy-duty bicep artillery now. No one was ever in any doubt that the Chosen One would spend his time recuperating from injury by honing his game. But it looks like he also worked through the boredom of his eight-months hiatus by pumping steel like a maniac.

I have no idea where the Tiger lives but it is a safe bet to imagine somewhere secluded, palatial and, in some wing or another, is equipped with a state-of-the-art gymnasium. And that late at night, the Tiger would exercise his frustrations at being away from the game by working his way through the free-weights – like Lester Burnham in American Beauty, only different.

The hyping of this year’s Masters, from the tournament organisers to the television companies who cover it, has been suspiciously shrill. Clearly, everyone is relieved that Woods, unquestionably the star performer in golf, is out in the world again.

In 1993, Michael Jordan took a leave of absence from basketball (and possibly from his senses too) after completing three championships in a row with the Chicago Bulls.

As his Airness embarked on a quixotic and mainly humiliating attempt to master baseball, the NBA en masse did its best to pretend that the man who was comfortably the best ball player in the world simply couldn’t be bothered beating them any more.

As a show, the NBA suffered badly: it was like watching the E Street Band without the Boss. Eventually, Jordan did return, the Bulls won three more championships and David Stern, the NBA commissioner, rejoiced. But Jordan’s break from the game offered a glimpse into the post-Michael future the NBA faced and the sport has yet to find a way to produce a figure even remotely as compelling as number 23 at his peak.

Surely the last eight months have given the nabobs of golf a similarly terrifying hint of the state of the game without Tiger. Since Woods won his first US Masters in 1997 – with a swooning Peter Alliss repeatedly murmuring “he’s only 21, you know” to viewers of the BBC – he has strode through golf like a colossus.

The crazy predictions that Woods would broaden the appeal of golf to the young and the urban were never going to flesh out – even if the appearance of three teenagers in this year’s Masters has been sold as the arrival of the generation inspired by Tiger.

With all due respect to Masters McIlroy, Ishikawa and Lee, the presence of three golfers who prefer Kanye West to the Eagles is hardly going to be sufficient to make true the wish of Masters chairman Billy Payne that the tournament become a “magnet for youth”.

No, big-time golf is still a magnet for money and privilege and heavyweight corporations and Tiger Woods, after 13 years at the top, is still the player that thrills them most. Woods has that inexplicable talent for winning without making his audience become tired of him winning.

From the beginning, it was obvious that Woods had the talent and the temperament to get involved in a chase against the gods of the game as much as with his field of competitors.

Woods’ remorseless progress towards Jack Nicklaus’s magical haul of 18 Majors is part of the appeal for the audience on the fairways and for the millions watching around the world: there is privilege in watching sporting history in the making.

Through the years, several of the best “other” golfers have stepped up and tried manfully to declare themselves as viable opponents. David Duval just got vaporised by the game. Lefty Mickelson always looked too spaced out, happy to be absolutely minted and there or thereabouts on the leaderboard to sustain a genuine rivalry. In the main, Woods was playing against the legacy of Nicklaus and Ballesteros and Faldo in their prime.

The one edge that golf has on all other sports is that the greats never really leave. This is particularly true at the Masters.

The presence of everyone from Arnold Palmer to McIlroy creates the sense of a fantastical mingling of the generations: it is fantasy stuff: golf’s equivalent of Pele running onto the field alongside Lionel Messi.

The chances of Greg Norman actually winning the Masters at the age of 56 are remote but they are not non-existent, as he demonstrated in his opening round.

The Masters offers nostalgia and ruthlessness playing the same course together, which is why it makes such great television entertainment, even for those who don’t particularly care for the game. And much of the menace and edge emanates from the glowering, cut figure of the best player in the world.

It is no accident that Woods, dressed in his familiar black apparel, chose a shirt designed to advertise the fact that he is now toting the best set of pistons in the club house: it all adds to the aura of invincibility and inevitability. Don’t imagine that all other Masters competitors, from Ryo Ishikawa to Gary Player, have not been forlornly examining the state of their own biceps before heading out on the practice ground.

One can only guess at how the leaderboard will look this morning. But in the time that Woods has been away nursing his knee and raging against the triceps extension machine, he has surely begun to think about Pádraig Harrington a lot more often.

The affable Irishman’s stunning feat of gobbling up the last two Majors of 2008 must have deepened Woods resolve to return stronger than ever. Harrington’s virtues are well known: his unstinting work ethos, his courtesy, his modesty and his pathological fussiness about the kind of butter he will use.

Harrington may well rank as the most approachable elite sportsman on the planet and has become highly skilful in trading as an Everyman who, against the odds, made it to the top of world golf.

Even on his bad days, Harrington is warm and empathetic, the opposite of the thrilling coldness that engulfs Tiger Woods when he is in pursuit of a victory.

But as Woods sat in the shadows last summer, he must surely have recognised in Harrington something of his own nerve and temperament for staying steady and brave when the pressure is greatest.

It could be that the much-hyped teenage sensations playing on Augusta will someday emerge as the chief threats to the Age of the Tiger. But for now, a series of classic duels between Woods and the dauntless Irishman would be the perfect way to mark his return.