Realistic calculation of the odds has never been a rewarding option around Tiger Woods but in Augusta this weekend logic is trying hard to exact a little revenge. It always seemed to be stretching rationality to expect even the greatest player golf has known to win his 15th major title on only his fourth competitive appearance since recovering from serious knee surgery but when his third outing brought a dramatic victory in the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill in Florida two weeks ago questioning his prospects in the Masters began to bring on that familiar feeling of provoking a deity. However, both his form and his mood as he finished yesterday’s third round at four under par (and seven strokes behind the joint leaders, Kenny Perry and Angel Cabrera, who were two up on Chad Campbell) made belief in the imminence of a consuming surge difficult to sustain.

The calibre rather than the volume of the human obstacles ahead of him discouraged optimism about Woods’s chances throughout yesterday. An earlier stampede of birdies had left a herd of rivals blocking his route to contention and when he looked at the names on the lead-erboard he knew he couldn’t harbour assumptions that all of them would choke in the cloud of pressure their charge created. At the end of his par round on Friday he was unmistakably tetchy. There was no trace of the smile that can light up a town. Ill-tempered gloom was natural enough as he absorbed the worrying statistic that his first 36 holes had produced seven birdies and five bogeys while the 23-year-old Korean-American Anthony Kim had shot 11 birdies in his second round alone.

Kim’s feat was a record for the Masters. But it occurred in a context of spectacularly low scoring precipitated by the generosity with which the event organisers initially set up the course in response to suggestions that the severity of recent years had obliged the field to favour a grinding caution and thus drained much of the traditional excitement from the tournament. That Woods failed to join in the widespread exploitation of the helpful conditions over Thursday and Friday was doubly significant because his accumulation of disappointing numbers wasn’t relieved – as it frequently has been in the past – by hints that his game was hovering on the brink of sudden, decisive improvement. He was scoring moderately as a direct result of playing moderately, most conspicuously on the greens, where he was unrec-ognisable as the best clutch putter in the world.

The impression of frustration that wouldn’t be readily dispersed was strengthened by the terseness of his replies to a brief interrogation on the banality of his second-round 72. “Yeah” was the most common reaction to a series of inquiries meant to elicit elaboration on the problems he had encountered. It was a doleful affirmative, underlining how miserable his afternoon had been. Obviously, the same answer had a different, more characteristic tone when he was asked if the task of making up a seven-shot deficit was doable. But even then his “yeah” was less than sufficiently vehement to make his staunchest admirers flex the betting muscles. They were forced to reflect that for Tiger yet again to mock the odds he would have to reach the heights of his supernatural repertoire while a sizeable group of formidable competitors faltered.

Faith in such a convenient coincidence of developments was never easy yesterday, particularly as precedent firmly indicated that the turnaround would have to be a reality by the end of the day. In all the 14 majors he has won, Woods was leading or at least sharing the lead after completion of 54 holes. Of course, there will probably be a time when he will come from behind on Sunday to capture one of the four ultimate prizes of golf but thoughts that it might happen today were tempered first by the absence of electricity in his demeanour and then by aware-ness that the pack he had to overhaul contained quite a few men who wouldn’t look out of place in the green jacket.

There was a general, and perhaps harsh, suspicion before Campbell started his third round that, for all the sweet purity of his swing, he would find the demands of frontrun-ning in such an arena too much for him. But it took a double bogey on the 16th to deprive him of a share of the lead.

There was never any sign that the resolute, 48-year-old Perry would be pushed out of the limelight, nor that the Argentinian heavyweight Cabrera would be prevented from joining him at the head of the field.

The one bonus for the spectators that was associated with Woods’s three-round score of four under par was that it lined him up as likely to partner his old adversary Phil Mickelson on the last day. Both will be regretting their inability to rise to their peaks yesterday. With the rain delivered by an overnight thunderstorm having had a softening effect on the greens, there was an invitation to attack the pins in search of the blitz of birdies the two of them needed. Neither summoned personal lightning.

Yet, inevitably, there was a sense that whatever Woods did, positive or negative, would have a huge impact on the shaping of the 2009 Masters climax.

How could it be otherwise when he is now unchallengeably established as not only the ruling presence of his own game but the most dominant and thrilling figure in the whole of sport?

Sometimes we fail to appreciate just how remarkable it is that an individual has been able to achieve that status through the strange competitive structure of golf, a game in which the supreme performers lose far more often than they win. Tiger’s total of 14 major successes is phenomenal but this is the 47th such event he has contested as a professional. It might be said that the most distinguished tennis champions have similar familiarity with the taste of defeat (Roger Federer’s 13 Grand Slam titles have required participation in 39 of those championships, Pete Sampras’s tally is 14 from 52) but the tennis greats tend to win plenty of matches even in tournaments they leave empty-handed. All four rounds of a golf tournament constitute a final and only one player has the winning experience.

If a fighter lost as frequently as the best of golfers does, he would be reckoned a sad failure but there has never been any doubt about Tiger’s ascent to recognition as the most charismatic sportsman since Muham-mad Ali. However he fares today, we are privileged to have such a miracle among us.

Artful Messi draws clear of rival

For those who come to the Masters it’s almost a duty to have nothing but Georgia on their minds but over the past few days some of us from Europe have been thinking rather guiltily of fields where the azaleas and the dogwood don’t grow. In Britain football is frequently so oppressively pervasive that even lifelong lovers of the game can start to crave respite, and there could hardly be a more seductive invitation to become immersed in another sporting world than the event unfolding on the enchanted acres of Augusta National. But back across the ocean the Champions League is accelerating towards its seasonal climax, and distance isn’t much of an antidote to addiction.

So in midweek there was a flurry of tinkering with the miniature television sets fitted to the desks of the golf course media centre in determined pursuit of images from Old Trafford and Anfield. For Manchester United’s performance in drawing 2-2 with Porto, there should have been a black border around the screen. It was a display to feed fears that what was prematurely hailed as a triumphal march to a clutch of trophies is in danger of being transformed into a scramble to avoid a conclusion of historic disappointment.

As he contemplates a daunting expedition to Portugal, Sir Alex Ferguson may be musing wistfully on how the abrupt decline in his squad’s effectiveness has coincided with an exciting upsurge in that of Chelsea.

The return of Michael Essien, a player able to have a devouring influence on midfield action that no other in the Premier League can currently match, was bound to improve Chelsea dramatically and now their manager, Guus Hiddink, couldn’t be blamed for believing his second European club championship (and London’s first) is within reach.

Certainly Liverpool seemed to be not so much beaten as broken on their own turf last Wednesday.

Of course, Hiddink might be ill-advised to look beyond the expected semi-final date with Barcelona and Lionel Messi. Perhaps Ferguson, too, will have thoughts of the Argentinian virtuoso, specifically of how consistently he is enhancing his reputation while the man who finished ahead of him in the votes for the latest World Player of the Year award, Cristiano Ronaldo, increasingly looks like a pretender to the crown.

Saying so has nothing to do with the cutting in half of Ronaldo’s scoring rate - this season’s goal figure (20 yesterday morning) is impressive unless compared with last season’s phenomenal total of 42 - or the deadliness that has already given Messi 32 in the present campaign. I have long been convinced that Messi’s range of penetrative skills identifies him as the most gifted attacking player in football.

Another superiority is an aura of fierce commitment to the Barça cause. Whereas he makes spectators of defenders, Ronaldo too often makes a spectator of himself.

Smokin’ Joe has right to fume

In advance of last night’s showing on HBO in the United States of a documentary already seen on British television, Thriller in Manila - which fills a long-felt need by telling the story of the unfor-gettably brutal heavyweight championship fight of 1975 between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier from Frazier’s point of view - Smokin’ Joe was quoted as saying he has sufficient sympathy for the old foe imprisoned in Parkinsonism to pray for him. But even Christian charity can’t be expected to dilute Frazier’s bitterness towards the man who called him a gorilla in rhyming rants before the grim epic in Manila, and had earlier caused yet deeper offence when referring to him as an Uncle Tom.

That insult had to be considered unforgivable by any proud black man, and none was ever prouder than the fighter I saw lose heroically in the Philippines. It did nothing to lessen Ali’s offence that he regarded such talk as a legitimate undermining device similar to his taunting of George Foreman as The Mummy or the jibes about Earnie Shavers’ hairless skull (“ . . . the acorn must fall”). The Greatest has apologised for the gross cruelty but we must suspect Joe, inset, would still rather hook him than hug him.