Vonn's comeback an inspiration

Four-time overall World Cup champion Lindsey Vonn's triumphant comeback to skiing on the weekend provided inspiration for her boyfriend, golf star Tiger Woods, in his return from a back injury.

Woods, who missed the past four months before playing the Hero World Challenge, praised the effort Vonn made in her return this week at World Cup races in Canada, where she cemented her return from a high-speed crash in February of 2013.

"It's pretty cool," Woods said. "She is really better. She has got the confidence back."

Vonn won Saturday's downhill race at Lake Louise, Alberta, in 1:50.48 and followed on Sunday with a runner-up effort in the super-G, her 1:18.83 second to Swiss Lara Gut by .37 of a second.

"That's a pretty incredible performance," Woods said. "She's getting better and better and better. She's back where she believed she could get to."

Woods, a 14-time major champion chasing the record of 18 won by Jack Nicklaus, has not won a major since the 2008 US Open and missed most of this season with nagging back pain.

He had not played since the PGA Championship last August until this week, when he shared last place at the 18-man event that benefits his charity foundation.

It was March of last year, only a month after Vonn's crash at the Alpine World Championships, when Woods, 38, and Vonn, 30, announced they were dating.

They have attended several sports events together and she has watched him play many times. Woods was expected to go to the Sochi Winter Olympics to watch Vonn before she reinjured her knee in practice 13 months ago and was unable to defend her 2010 downhill gold medal.

Pure aggression

Woods appreciates the relative difference in difficulty between his precision sport and hers.

"I'm not going to die in my sport," Woods said. "What they do and the surfaces they are on, injected snow, it's just scary how fast it is and how dangerous and how much focus you have to bring to the table.

"Probably the biggest thing besides that is my sport is about playing a physical chess match that takes time and lots and lots of patience whereas hers is just pure aggression."

While Woods has battled back problems, he has watched Vonn fight back to rebuild her body to take the punishment of a ski course and her mind to take the risks she needs to win.

"It's a lot of hard work," Woods said. "You have to understand that she hadn't skied that competitively in two years.

"So to be able to get into a position where she felt comfortable to push the physical limits, absolute limits - because that's what you have to do in order to win in her sport - and to be able to take those chances and risks without having her knee blow out on her is pretty cool."