There's plenty of debate about whether Tiger Woods will ever recapture his best, but his fellow professionals are unanimous in nominating Woods as the player to beat for the 2010 JBWere Australian Masters starting at Victoria GC on Thursday.
A lot's happened privately since Woods returned home from his last visit to Melbourne with the 2009 Masters gold jacket he earned for his two-shot victory over Greg Chalmers at Kingston Heath.
Considering that he hasn't won since, this week's event offers Woods a timely opportunity to pick up - both professionally and personally - where he left off 12 months ago.
For Woods, a win at Victoria would provide a symbolic full stop to his year from hell, and his main rivals - including Robert Allenby, Sergio Garcia and Geoff Ogilvy - believe he's more than capable of achieving it.
"Tiger is likely to just come out this week and probably win," said Allenby.
"I know he's hitting the ball really well and if he makes putts around this golf course he is going to be very, very hard to beat."
"He is super close."
"He definitely showed signs of some really good golf last week in the final round (of the HSBC Champions in Shanghai)."
"I have no doubt in my mind he will win a major next year for sure."
Allenby said that while that he may have slipped to No.2 on the official world rankings behind Lee Westwood, Woods is still the "best and greatest".
"He's the guy that everyone wants to beat and whenever he is in the field, you want to play in that field," said Allenby.
"He has a remarkable ability to perform and he's the best at what we do."
Asked whether Woods had lost his aura, Garcia said: "He's had his problems too, like we all know."
"But he's trying to get everything back where it was before, to get on his comfort level."
"We know how good a player he is, it's always a challenge."
According to Ogilvy, Woods is not far from rediscovering his best.
"Some people think he's gone and he'll never be the same and some people think 'you guys are kidding yourselves, he's the best ever, he's just having a bad patch'," Ogilvy said.
"It's a very fine line."
"The intimidation was that you knew he was going to play well down the stretch so you had to play well to beat him."
"That's not there at the moment ... but he's two or three tournament wins in-a-row away from this whole room claiming him as the same as he always was."
"It changes really fast and I think there will be periods for the rest of his career where he will dominate like he has before."