Tiger is back, hoping to honour Dad with Open win

MAMARONECK, New York, June 13 (Reuters) The grieving is over and the game is on. Tiger Woods has fixed his gaze on paying the best tribute he can to honour his late father by winning this week's US Open at Winged Foot.

''I'm here to compete and play and try to win this championship,'' said Woods, absent from the tour since the US Masters in April in order to spend time with his father, coach and mentor, Earl, who died on May 3.

''I know that Dad would still want me to go out there and grind it and give it my best, and that's what I always do. That's what I will certainly try to do this week,'' he told a news conference.

Woods said he had gone 30 days without touching a club before resuming practice, returning to the fundamental rhythms of his childhood when the golf prodigy was groomed by his father.

''I think one of the hardest things for me in all honesty was to get back to the game of golf because a lot of my memories, great memories that I have with my Dad are at the golf course.

It was hard at times going out there late in the evening like I always do,'' Woods said.

Once he resumed, however, the 30-year-old world number one said he was comforted by the routines, which warmed him with the memory of happy times with his father.

''Any time you take time off and start back, you always work on your fundamentals -- grip, posture, stance, alignment. Well, that's what I learned from Dad.

''So from that standpoint, it was certainly a little more difficult that I had expected. But also then again, it brought back so many great memories and every time I thought back I always had a smile on my face.

''As I was grinding and getting ready, it was also one of the great times, too, to remember and think back on all the lessons, life lessons Dad taught me through the game of golf. All these things come rushing back at you.'' WEDDING BREAK After spending time with his ailing father after the Masters, his father encouraged him to attend the wedding in New Zealand of his caddie and friend, Steve Williams.

''I asked Dad, 'Hey, Pop, do you think I should go?' He said, 'I'm not going anywhere. Get your ass out of here'.'' Woods said it was a helpful break for him and he took advantage by letting off steam by bungee jumping over a river gorge, car racing on a dirt track and deep sea diving.

''When I got back, we had a great conversation about it. It was really neat,'' Woods said about sharing with his father, a former Green Beret solider.

''Well he did it for a living, jumped out of airplanes and doing that kind of stuff for Special Forces. He said, 'I had to do it. Why would you do it?' He was pretty funny about it.'' Woods said he waited until he felt the time was right to get back to golf. ''Dad was always adamant of whenever you're ready to play, play. If you're not ready to play, you're not going to be there.'' Woods said he did not want to bother entering tournaments as a warm-up for the Open, where he will try to add to his haul of 10 major championships.

''I didn't come back until I felt that I was ready to win a championship,'' he said. ''I think the two times I've taken my longest breaks have been after my knee surgery in 2002 and this past winter, taking I guess, six weeks off. Both times I've come back and I've won.'' ''I'm there to compete. I'm there to win the tournament, and all my energy is going towards that,'' he said about the Open where he will try to keep rival Phil Mickelson from winning his third major in a row.

''Sunday is hopefully a day where I can win the championship.

I've got three days to hopefully play good golf and put myself in a position to where I can win.'' Sunday, of course, is also Father's Day. Woods was asked if he had any special memories of that day from his childhood.

''Fathers' Day was actually a pretty cool day because I would always try and beat my Dad on the golf course and then come back home and catch the back nine of the US Open,'' he recalled.

''That's usually how it worked when I was growing up.

''I (finally) beat Dad when I was 11. I shot 71 to his 72 at the Navy Golf Course. I birdied 16 and 18, made about a 15-footer, a little right-to-left. I gave it the first pump walking off the green and everything. We went in and we celebrated.'' REUTERS DH RAI0253