The jewellery store on the strip that runs perpendicular to Magnolia Lane said it all, really. Right there across Washington Road, directly opposite the players' entrance to Augusta National Golf Club where you could only miss it if you tried very hard to, stood a guy with a sandwich board draped over him, advertising the jeweller's wares. 'PULLED A TIGER?' it roared. 'LET US SMOOTH IT OVER FOR YOU!'

Tiger Woods was, of course, the soundtrack to the week in Augusta. He was the soundtrack, the plot, the script and the theatre. Even the weather bent his way, the hellacious storm that passed through 95% of eastern Georgia on Thursday afternoon somehow deciding to leave Augusta alone until he was finished his round.

Maybe it was just leaving the skies clear for the aeroplane. All week, people had been anticipating some class of tabloid sting operation to be put into action, but nobody knew what form it would take. There was word that at least one of Woods's innumerable doxies would show up on the course and leap out of the crowd to embarrass him at some point. So much so that his plain-clothed security guards were carrying photos of faces in the crowd to look out for.

Indeed, there was an incident on Monday afternoon when one such guard went over to a particularly shapely patron and asked the immortal question: "Excuse me, ma'am – are you the stripper?"

She wasn't, as it turned out. "I'm not sure how I should feel about that," she said. It's hard to know, right enough.

Anyway, the aeroplane. It was mid-afternoon on Thursday and Woods was waiting to putt out (it's a golf term, people – let's try to keep this reasonably tasteful, eh?) on the seventh green. But before he could hole out (oh, forget it) he looked up to see a plane trailing a banner behind it. 'Tiger. Did you mean bootyism?' it said. People pointed and laughed. Woods looked away.

When asked about it afterwards, he said he hadn't seen it. Presumably then, he didn't see the one that followed about half an hour later either, this time reading: 'Sex addict? Yeah. Right. Sure. Me too!'

Thing is, this is the Masters and the men who run the Masters don't take too kindly to their annual gathering being reduced to a worldwide punchline. So hot on the heels of club chairman Billy Payne tut-tutting for all he was worth on Wednesday afternoon about Woods's "egregious" behaviour, the aeroplane was quietly taken care of by Friday morning.

Safety inspectors from the Federal Aviation Administration grounded it, decreeing there was a faulty seat belt on board. Such was the threat posed by this defective seat belt that the pilot was told to fly it to Ohio to get it fixed. Seriously. You don't mess with the Masters.

Once Woods got settled into the golfing portion of the week, he was fine. Well, he was more than fine. He was inexplicably, almost drearily excellent. Five months away from the game and he carried on as if he'd had a nice, peaceful winter. From there on, he acted like he was the best golfer in the world. Which, of course, was his easiest route out of all this.

On Friday night, Woods came into the interview room in the press centre. He took his seat, adjusted his cap, sipped his water and answered questions. He sat there for just over 11 minutes and answered everything that came his way. Happy and contented, for one simple reason.

For the first time since the second week of November, every single question was about golf.