Caddie's Role: From the friendliest form of competitive competition in Orlando, Florida, we have swiftly moved to the most intense venue for the first major of the year in Augusta, Georgia.

Last Monday and Tuesday, the fourth Tavistock Cup was played at Lake Nona.

The Tavistock Cup is a little club championship junket devised to answer the question of which group of superstars would win if they went head-to-head in an inter-club challenge. The exclusive complexes of Lake Nona and Isleworth are homes to some of the world's finest golfers. Between them, they boast 43 major titles. Tiger Woods headed the Isleworth team and Ernie Els fronted the Lake Nona team.

At 9.15am last Monday the still morning was agitated by the distant thud of three helicopters transporting the Isleworth team to the northern part of Orlando. It was reported that the international airport was closed for 15 minutes both days to allow the choppers make their final approach to Lake Nona. The main man behind the event, Joe Lewis, has obviously got some serious influence in central Florida.

As low-key as the promoters would like you to believe this little event was, there are no corners cut in its staging. An exclusive hospitality area was erected for the members to socialise in: the rumour was it cost half a million for the two days.

David Feherty announced the start of the challenge, suggesting that if the Ilesworth team dressed in grey and played in family groups that they could re-enact the American Civil War. The contest was, of course, played in a very civilised and peaceful manner.

As casual as it may have seemed, there is nonetheless no way to suppress the competitive nature of top golfers. With a prize fund of $2.5 million on offer, it didn't take much to whet their competitive appetites, with $100,000 on offer to each winning team member, and $50,000 to the losers. There were all sorts of incentives, like cars for closest to the hole on 17, which my man, Retief Goosen, won by hitting a six-iron to within a foot.

But the biggest lure was the half a million for the best score during the second day's play. It was not all self-interest. The winners got to donate $100,000 to a charity of their choice.

The home team won convincingly, while the individual prize went to the main man on the losing team. Even when Tiger loses, he wins.

Given Tiger's gruelling final round in Miami, where he bunted a few irons down the final hole to seal victory by a shot in the CA Championship at Doral, his performance in a two-day event that must have seemed tame by comparison to Miami, was impressive.

In an unassuming fashion, Tiger shot eight-under to take another half a million in his "off" time. Feherty asked him on the 14th tee if he was motivated by such a pittance. As diplomatic as ever, he talked around the answer. Judging by how he played the last four holes in level par, he had adopted a win mentality as he knew eight-under would be the lowest score.

I looked at the expression on his face while he was preparing for his shots and it was as intense as could be. Between shots he was as jovial as he always is. I think the answer was sure, half a million is still a lot of greenbacks, even to him.

On the eve of the 2007 Masters it would be nice to hypothesise about who is going to win. Having played with Tiger a few times over the last three weeks, I cannot stick my neck out and look any further. Tiger is going to win.

We played with him in the last round of the Bay Hill event three weeks ago and witnessed a collapse on the back nine not representative of the greatest ever golfer. The hasty ones were ready to bury him. As often as it is feasible to think that Tiger is infallible, his humanity sometimes creeps into his game. The human side of the world number one is always present inside the ropes. He was quizzing me about the difficulty of converting a yardage book to metres as we waited on the 17th tee at Bay Hill. He has always been respectful to his fellow competitors and their bagmen.

In many ways it is refreshing to see that he really is not a machine and is susceptible to mistakes like us all.

What is so impressive about Tiger is he went on to erase the negatives from his head and beat the best field of the year the following week.

So we begin yet another week of quirky rules and regulations in the most exclusive golf club in the world, set off one of the tackiest streets in the world, Washington Road in Augusta, Georgia.

I know it is no revelation to those who know and those who are simply absorbed by the Tiger phenomenon, but Tiger will prevail.

His form, his length, his putting touch, his savvy, humanity and, most of all, the fact he is still playing for his father who died last year, is going to make it a mammoth challenge for anyone who thinks that they can overcome such an invincible combination of talent and determination.