Wednesday 8 April 2015 10:47, UK
Martin Kaymer believes Tiger Woods’ presence in the Masters field will bring out the best in all of the tournament’s leading players.
But Kaymer feels the former world No 1 may find it difficult to deal with the speculation about his state of mind and hopes Woods will be allowed to concentrate on playing.
The 14-time major winner missed the cut in his first event of 2015 after shooting a career-worst 82 and withdrew from the second due to injury.
Woods has not played competitive golf since then but confirmed he would compete at Augusta and while that surprised plenty of people in the game, Kaymer is confident it will help raise standards.
"I hope he's happy,” said Kaymer, who goes to Augusta ranked 14th in the world. “I hope he's fine. I hope he will play well this week. But what would bother me a lot is all the speculation. You don't have a choice; you will read about it somewhere. You will hear about it because you socialise with people.
"So mentally it must be quite exhausting and we know how important the mental part is in golf. It's difficult and some things I don't find very fair. You know, you should just let him be. Let him play golf, what he likes to do.
"Sometimes I look at it and find it quite sad how people treat the whole subject. It shouldn't be like this in my opinion. But that's how it is unfortunately. That is how a lot of people make their money and some athletes, they suffer because of that.
"Hopefully he's strong enough, he has people to talk to, and he finds a way to compete as good as he can. Because we all know when he's around, somehow it does make us play better, as well.
"I never experienced someone who played better than him. In my era, I never played with Seve (Ballesteros) and I never played with Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, those guys. So for me, what I have seen and what I have experienced, he's the man."
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