Orlando:
When Tiger Woods returns to the golf course, someone - an aggrieved fan, an ambitious bettor, an exhibitionist looking for a "SportsCenter" moment - will want to be the first to do the inevitable.
He, or she, will have probably combed through all the dirt and the gossip in the blogosphere to unearth the single heckle worth waiting for, the perfect one to unload on Woods when his four-month absence from golf ends.
It may or may not happen during the Masters at Augusta National Golf Club in two weeks. If so, it would probably happen during the practice rounds Monday through Wednesday. During the tournament's four rounds, fans with season badges would be loath to jeopardize their reputation or annual entree to the Masters merely to holler something that would violate the code of sportsmanship laid down by Bobby Jones.
But eventually someone will scream something at Woods. No one doubts it, not even - or perhaps, especially - Woods, who said, "I'm a little nervous about that, to be honest with you" when asked by an ESPN reporter on Sunday about the possibility of a negative crowd reaction.
How Woods deals with potential hecklingwill be among the minutely scrutinized aspects of his return. The first opportunity to find out how he plans to deal with it will come April 5, the Monday afternoon of Masters week, when he sits for his pretournament interview.
The fans' proximity to the golfers, who could conceivably smell the beer on the breath of someone hanging over the rope to offer counsel, is a dual-edged sword. Certainly, it represents the very intimacy that draws spectators to watch live golf, but it can also have an adverse effect for pros not in the mood for amateur putting advice.
Stewart Cink, who is friendly with Woods and said he would not mind being paired with him at the Masters, recalled his own experience with raw nerve endings inside the ropes. It came the week after he blew a 2-foot putt at the U.S. Open in 2001 that would have landed him in the Monday playoff.
"I felt exposed," said Cink, whose exposure does not approximate Woods'. ``I had just done something crazy at the U.S. Open, and going into Westchester, where the crowd is vocal, I was a little bit nervous about what some of the comments might be. And there were some comments.
''So I can definitely understand how he might be feeling about what may come out of some of the people. The Masters is a lot different animal than Westchester, but he is going to hear some things, whether there or later on down the road.``
With a well-earned reputation for hearing, and often reacting to, crowd noise, Colin Montgomerie was a favorite target of beery American spectators. He was taunted about everything from his corpulent physique to his fits of pique to his failure to win a tournament in the United States despite his 31 international titles.
He said Tuesday that he did not expect Woods to be similarly roughed up, particularly at Augusta, or at St. Andrews in the British Open or Celtic Manor in the Ryder Cup.
''I've heard when he said that he's nervous to come back, and that's the first time I've ever heard Tiger say those words," Montgomerie, this year's European Ryder Cup captain, said at Bay Hill, where he is playing the Arnold Palmer Invitational on a sponsor's exemption. "I think it will be fine. Coming to a so-called normal PGA Tour event, it might be different.
"But being so controlled, and I think he's been very wise in selecting the Masters for his return, and believe me, he wouldn't be playing in the Masters - I know him well enough, he wouldn't be playing in the Masters if he didn't think he could win."
Dr. Gio Valiante, a sports psychologist and author, has worked with golfers like Camilo Villegas, Davis Love III and Matt Kuchar. He has spent much time studying Woods, with whom he has played golf. He said he thinks Woods will certainly be heckled, but believes he already has a plan for dealing with it.
He said he thought that the first time Woods heard a heckler, he would smile, turn to his caddie, Steve Williams, and say, "Well, we just got the first one out of the way."
"In other words," Valiante said, "do not think that this man is going to go in there unprepared for people to heckle him. It will be like he deals with the first-tee jitters. He's going to get right into his routine, he's going to adapt, because that's what he does."
As evidence, Valiante cited Woods' remarks from one of the two brief interviews shown Sunday night that led him to believe Woods "is not going to miss a beat" when he returns to competition. The sentence has not been quoted often in the flurry of analysis that followed the interviews.
"When Tiger said, 'The strength I feel now, I've never felt that type of strength,"' Valiante said, "it told me you can just forget everything else. If you know the pattern of his language well enough to know what's not scripted, then that tells you he's feeling a freedom."
Valiante likened the feeling to that which the Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez said he felt last year after admitting his use of performance-enhancing drugs. In 45 days of therapy, Woods has found the type of strength that comes when "you strip away rationalization, when you strip away denial, when you strip away ego," Valiante added.
Whether that is true will be determined in time. What Woods thinks of it will be answered a week from Monday.