IF EVERY dark cloud has a silver lining, it came for Brendon Goddard last August as he stood just metres from the great Tiger Woods as the golf champion carved up the field at the Southern Hills golf course in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to win the US PGA Championship.

Goddard had been travelling through the US with a group of friends, taking in the sights and as much sport as possible. The St Kilda ball magnet was convalescing from the only major injury of his burgeoning career. Only three months earlier, the rangy Goddard had ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee after a heavy bump in the opening quarter of the Saints' round-seven match against Sydney at the Telstra Dome.

After his surgery and initial recovery, the avid golfer, who plays at Melbourne's Yarra Yarra where he has a handicap of only four, took the rare opportunity away from football to get up close to Woods.

"I was like a little kid when I first saw him, I was jumping out of my boots," Goddard recalled this week. "My mate and I, we didn't expect to see him and we just headed out and he was actually playing his practice round. I was jumping out of my skin."

His own golfing ambitions have been another victim of the cruel knee injury. But the chance to follow Woods around the course at two tournaments gave Goddard an up-close view of the pressure and adulation the American lives with every time he steps up to drive.

"Sitting back and watching him, you realise how special the bloke is and just how admired he is by the whole of (the US) and the whole world, really. The amount of support is ridiculous. … If Tiger was on the course, you could easily watch any player in the world, stand up close on the course, right behind the tee.

"To get near Tiger sent a chill down the spine, really. Being an avid golfer, you appreciate what he does by getting to see him up close and to see the pressure he is under each week to perform and just the (crowd) support he has got, you don't realise until you go there."

Crowd support and expectation are something Goddard knows all about. Although not on the level of an international sporting icon, the Saints carry expectations and hopes, and Goddard, with the extra burden of being a No. 1 draft pick, has experienced his share of pressure. The Saints, he affirms, don't focus on external expectations and, as for his own, he has had to rethink his focus on things after such a serious injury.

In some ways, football has lost its certainty for the talented Goddard; in other ways, he has regained what he loves most about the game.

"Sitting back in the stands, you miss out on so much, but the thing I missed the most, and I have only come to realise this now that I'm back and playing, is the camaraderie, the mateship, sitting back after the game and the listening to the stories, just being involved with a footy team during the week and after the games," he said.

"Even though you love playing the game and running out on Telstra Dome or the MCG, it's all the little things that matter most … that is what I missed the most and now I am really trying to make the most out of it."

In darker moments, when things were not going so well and he was struggling with the frustration of not playing, Goddard turned to teammates Lenny Hayes, Robert Harvey and Matt Maguire. Hayes had only recently recovered from a knee injury and had learned invaluable lessons on the path to his recovery. Patience, it seemed, was the key.

"People would say to me all the time during the injury that it makes you a better person. During the early days, I could not understand how it would. As time goes on — and people said this — you do get to appreciate footy a little more," he said.

"For something that is so important in your life, or is your life, to get it taken away in a few seconds, it was pretty hard to grasp. You get over that, you see the light at the end of the tunnel. I know that sounds cliched, but that is what it was like. You do get to appreciate the game, it develops you as a person, your mental toughness, especially in the off-season.

"But to get it over and done with, it was a relief."

Tonight, when the Saints take on an improved Richmond at the Telstra Dome, Goddard will be lining up for his fifth game of the year. His return, like that of Brisbane Lion forward Daniel Bradshaw and North Melbourne's Nathan Thompson, has exceeded expectations.

In his four games to date, Goddard has averaged 20 disposals and seven marks. He continues to help set up Saints attacks with three inside-50s a game and helps out in defence by rebounding on average four times a match. His 2008 averages are only slightly below his best season of 2006, when he was gaining 22 disposals and taking eight marks.

Goddard admitted to some surprise at how quickly he had regained his touch, but said he had been more than ready to return in round three against the Western Bulldogs. "I have been able to get a good fitness base pre-Christmas, and I felt pretty good coming into the first game."

What Goddard wants now is to get back to the grind and discipline of weekly football. He admitted he can't stop his mind from occasionally exploring the possibility of another major knee injury.

"At times during the game and even at times during training, I have thought about worst-case scenarios and what would happen if I did my knee again or something like this and you actually picture it in your head where you do do your knee again, when somebody falls across it or you go up for a mark and you fall awkwardly," Goddard said.

"Those things enter your mind unconsciously. What I have tried to do is put in the positive spin, remind myself I have done all the work possible to get back to this point and if something like that does happen, well, I can't control that … I do think about those things sometimes and I guess everybody else does. It only goes away with more football."