His latest comeback has been about as smooth as an elephant's knee, he's toppled out of the world's top 50, everybody thinks he's got the chipping yips and his 82 in Phoenix last week was, according to gobsmacked observers, the worst round ever posted in the history of golf.

Things could be worse for Tiger Woods, of course. He could be an R&A official trying to stave off the pitch-fork wielding masses following the decision to give Sky the Open Championship broadcasting rights.

In Dublin's High Court yesterday, the new superstar of the global golf scene, Rory McIlroy, mercifully reached a settlement with his former management company, Horizon, and avoided a prolonged, high profile palaver.

Woods, meanwhile, will subject his brittle game to more intense public scrutiny today at Torrey Pines, a happy hunting ground where he has won eight times down the years including the 2008 US Open, the last of his 14 major wins. That seems like a long, long time ago now.

The hands-over-the-eyes stuff that Woods produced last week - it was even hands-over-the-heads stuff at times as he knifed a bunker shot into the dumbstruck galleries - was particularly sad to watch. Where once folk gazed on with wide-eyed awe, they were peering on with pity. Even his own website couldn't avoid cataloguing the ghoulish details of what was the worst score of Woods's professional career. The sentence "he skulled his fifth over the green, semi-chunked his sixth to the fringe and two-putted for a triple bogey" simply illustrated the crippling wretchedness of Woods's short game.

Ahead of the first round of the today's Farmers Insurance Open, an event Woods has won seven times, the microscopes are being prepared for yet another period of intense examination and analysis.

"When you have the yips, you have issues," suggested Woods's former coach, Hank Haney. "This isn't going away. This isn't just a turn of the switch. It starts with technique and morphs into something else. It just doesn't go away. It's not just chipping and pitching. He's blading it out of bunkers."

At least Woods will have some company in the curiosity stakes this week in the shape of Dustin Johnson.

The 30-year-old makes his first competitive appearance since last July following a six-month absence in which he was sorting out a variety of "personal challenges". The allegations that he was serving a PGA Tour ban for failing a drugs test continue to swirl around him and, due to the Tour's policy of throwing a veil of secrecy over all disciplinary matters, the claims, questions and whisperings will not go away. Johnson has made no secret of the negative impact the partying and the drinking has had on his career. With eight PGA Tour wins to his name as well as a couple of close calls in the majors, Johnson, the former world No 4 who has just become a father for the first time, has the talent to be among the best but many still question whether he has the maturity to make the most of those talents.

"I'm sure I'll be rusty but I usually knock off the rust pretty quickly," Johnson said. "I expect to compete. Golf's a funny game. You never know what's going to happen, but I feel I will compete this week."

He's probably got more chance of doing that than the toiling Tiger.