I’ve watched Tiger Woods play in person. Not bunches of times, but at Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles a time or three. Back when he used to play the Nissan Open, or whatever it is called these days.

It had been a while, however. And the man was playing in the Abu Dhabi Championship, at The National course, maybe 20 minutes from the newspaper office. But I didn’t go on Thursday, and then I didn’t on Friday, nor on Saturday …

But when we got to Sunday and he was tied for the lead when he teed off, and my day didn’t look really long …

I was in the office, banging out a few things I needed to do. A comment piece on an Emirati kid going to the top-tier French club Lyon, a bit on three Sharjah soccer players failing a drug test, a thing about about the Olympic team preparing for a key London 2012 qualifier.

I might have been done sooner, but I kept getting out of my chair to catch up on the Australia Open final beteen Djokovic and Nadal (not realizing yet that the match would last six hours), but when I was ready to go, about 4:30, my “score tracker” device on espn.com showed Tiger through 14 holes. He was two shots back, in the last pairing, but he had time to catch up, and …

I could see the final couple of holes!

So, I ran out to catch a cab, stopped at the house to change shoes and drop off my backpack, continued south of town and off the island to the golf course, which still seemed to have traffic heading in, which struck me as a good thing.

I waved my newspaper ID at a few security guys, and got fairly close to the entrance before getting out of the cab … and then I saw people streaming towards me.

Nerdz! People coming off the golf course could mean only one thing:

The tournament was over.

And I’d just spent 30-40 frantic minutes to get there!

I hurried to the 18th green, where several hundred people were pushing up against the ropes that kept the spectators away from the enclosed area where golfers turned in their scorecards and did quick TV interviews.

The golf, clearly, was over. Who had won?

The crowd was still buzzing, which seemed good for Tiger, who hasn’t won a real tour event in 26 months. But much of the crowd also was dissipating, which would seem to indicate he didn’t win.

Eventually, people talking around me (most of them Brits, but some Indians, some Koreans, some Chinese … and very few Emiratis) made it clear that an anonymous English guy named Robert Rock had won, with Rory McIlroy one shot back and Tiger two shots back, tied for third.

I hung around the “people up against the ropes”, craning my neck, and eventually a taller guy wearing a baseball cap and red shirt materialized in front of the TV cameras … and there was Tiger. I couldn’t see him very well, but it was him.

I had seen Tiger Woods at the golf course.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking with it — and that broad declaration. I didn’t say I saw him hit a ball or even practice a swing. I saw him nearly hidden behind reporters and cameras.

I did get a close look at McIlroy as he came by (he seems about 15, in person), and I saw the winner, Rock.

But this is the nub of it: Tiger Woods came to play golf in Abu Dhabi, for the first time, and I was there on the final day of the tournament — when he had a chance to win. And I saw him at the golf course.