Allow me to introduce you to my current eating habits. I am on a diet. It does not contain much variety and is a lot less enjoyable than the sort of food I normally eat. I am eating crow and I expect to be doing so for some time. I am eating humble pie. I am eating my own words.

When I said in The Spike Bar last week that I did not know who would win the US Open but I knew who wouldn't and that person was Tiger Woods, I knew I was giving a hostage to fortune. But I thought Tiger Woods had no chance. For heaven's sake, he hadn't walked 18 holes for two months and he hadn't played competitively for that long either. I felt sure that he would be ring rusty even if he suffered no discomfort from the operation on his left knee.

I didn't think he would win after his first round, a 72, either. On the face of it, Woods's game was no better than there or thereabouts. His 72 could have been a 74 or 75 but it could not have been a 70 or 71. I even thought he might not last all four rounds because of the way he winced occasionally from the pain in his left knee.

Only when I saw the events of his inward nine holes on Friday, did I have second thoughts. That was when he hit a shot while standing on a cart path that reached the green and he sank the putt for a birdie. That was when he added three more birdies in the space of five holes. That was when he came back in 30 for a 68 that left him one stroke behind Stuart Appleby. That was when I knew I was in trouble.

I first saw Woods play as an amateur in the world amateur team championship, won by the US, in Paris in 1994, then again in the US team that lost to Great Britain and Ireland in the Walker Cup at Royal Porthcawl in 1995. I have attended 13 of the 14 major championships Woods has won as a pro.

So I should have known better, but it still took that remarkable performance in California, made even more remarkable by the latest news that as well as having to deal with the after-effects of his knee operation eight weeks earlier he was suffering from a multiple stress fracture of his left leg, to convince me once and for all never ever to underestimate Woods again. To my way of thinking his performance in San Diego makes his third victory in a US Open the greatest of his 14 major championships and the greatest demonstration of mind over matter I have ever seen on a golf course.

Just how does Woods do it? Is there a grain of truth in Retief Goosen's suggestion that Woods was not as badly hurt as he seemed because if he was then no one could have played so well as Woods did? This may soon rank alongside those famous "wish I hadn't said that" remarks, like Gary Player's about drugs in golf on the eve of last year's Open. Goosen's management company hustled to soften the impact of his remarks but the damage had been done.

How does Woods do it? The answer to that question is that he does it by sheer willpower and by being mentally stronger than any of his rivals. He simply does not entertain not succeeding. The following story tells us that that is the literal truth.

When Woods's stress fracture to his left tibia was diagnosed three weeks ago doctors advised him that the cure was three weeks on crutches followed by three weeks of rest. Hearing this, Hank Haney, Woods's coach, reports that Woods said to the doctors: "I'm playing the US Open and I'm going to win."

And that is precisely what he did. He won on little more than one leg. I should have known better than to under estimate him. Pass me the humble pie.

*****

My item about another force influencing our lives on earth in last week's Spike Bar has brought this story from Anthony Pioppi in the US: