ABU DHABI, United Arab Emnirates (AFP) — Just 36 holes into the new season here in the Gulf, all the lights are on green for Tiger Woods.

The former dominant figure in the golfing world is facing a crucial first six months of 2012 as he strives to fashion a second coming in a career that last year hit the skids.

Woods did chalk up his first win in two years last month, but that came in the limited-field Chevron World Challenge in California, an invitational tournament that he himself organises to provide funds for his charity foundation.

In Abu Dhabi it is the real deal, with the top four players in the world and six out of the top 10 taking part in one of the strongest fields ever assembled outside of a major or WGC event.

After two rounds, the 36-year-old Woods is firmly in contention at five under par, just two shots off the pace and primed for an assault at the weekend.

If he succeeds, he will likely vault back into the world top 10 and lay down a telling marker as he builds up to his first big priority of the year — The Masters at Augusta National in early April.

There he hopes to win his 15th major title, which would leave him just three shy of matching Jack Nicklaus, who set the record of 18 major titles when he won The Masters in 1986.

His playing partners over the first two rounds at the National Course in Abu Dhabi, Rory McIlroy and Luke Donald, have had a box office view of the new Woods, who has slowly remodelled his swing under coach Sean Foley to accomodate the leg injuries that laid him low for most of last year.

World number one Donald has been impressed.

"Yesterday (Thursday) his control of his golf ball was as good as I've seen it. Seventeen greens, he was shaping it both ways, and so that's always a daunting sign for us," he said yesterday.

The Englishman has been number one since last May, but has laboured under the weight of not having won a major title when someone like Woods, with 14 already to his name, dropped out of the world top 50 at one point last year.

McIlroy, 22, and seen as the spiritual heir-apparent to Woods, does not have that baggage, having won the US Open by eight strokes at Congressional Club, Washington DC last June.

Like all other players, he welcomes Woods' return to form and says he relishes going up against him over the next few years when he hopes the American is back to his best.

"He's been playing well, controlling his ball flight and knowing he's giving himself plenty of chances," the Ulsterman said.

Woods himself, apart from some grumblings about "grainy greens" in the Gulf, sounds quietly confident about the way things are developing.

"Certainly I have much more experience within the system and I've grown to understand what (coach) Sean (Foley) wants me to do and how my body is going to do those things and produce the numbers he wants me to produce. So that's 12 months more experience."

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