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By Helen Ross
PGATOUR.com Chief of Correspondents

DORAL, Fla. -- One can only imagine the conversation.

Roger Federer had dinner on Tiger Woods' "boat" -- the owner's words, of course, not doing the yacht "Privacy" justice -- on Tuesday evening. Doubt it was a late night, though, since Woods had his usual early practice session on Doral Wednesday morning.

Tiger Woods gets in a little practice at Doral before the CA Championship. (Greenwood/WireImage)

The No. 1 tennis player in the world didn't get the same wake-up call. He was there when his counterpart made the turn at the Blue Monster, though -- drawing so many autograph seekers that Woods waved his friend inside the ropes.

Talk about star power. The two most dominant athletes on the planet are competing in Miami this week -- Woods defending his title at the World Golf Championships-CA Championship and Federer playing in the Sony Ericsson Open.

"It's great to have him out here," Woods said after the round. "I think he's a wonderful supporter of golf, and I think it's pretty neat when you have probably the most dominant athlete on the planet out there in your gallery."

Say what? This comes from a man with 13 major championships among his 55 PGA TOUR wins and a 435-week reign at the top of the Official World Golf Ranking.

Of course, Woods was talking about a man who is the three-time defending Wimbledon and U.S. Open champion and has been No. 1 in his profession since February, 2004.

So it's hardly game, set, match -- for either camp. Both Woods and Federer have risen above the competition in two very different pursuits.

"In our sport, you can't physically dictate what somebody else is going to do," Woods explained. "You can't all of a sudden hit a drive out there past him and say, okay, I win the hole. That doesn't happen.

"So a person who actually is more physically gifted and physically dominant can actually just overpower somebody, and that just does not happen in our sport. So it's a little bit more difficult in that sense, golf wise.

"But what he's done, you know, over the last three years, no one's ever done."

Woods and Federer became friends last year. Woods sat in Federer's box at the U.S. Open last year, and Federer was in Woods' gallery in Shanghai and Dubai last month. Woods plans to watch Federer play his opening match in his title defense on Saturday.

"I had never really seen live golf from professionals up until the last year," Federer told the Associated Press on Wednesday. "It's different from sitting in a stadium watching soccer or a tennis match. You've got to know where to stand to see the ball.

"For me, it was hard to follow the ball. I lost it just because he hits it so hard and so far."

Tennis world No. 1 Roger Federer has become good friends with Tiger Woods. (Greenwood/WireImage)

Just as Federer likes the Tennis Center at Crandon Park, where he has won the last two Sony Ericsson Opens, Woods has an affinity for Doral.

He has won the last two PGA TOUR events played at the Blue Monster in a combined 44-under par. The first of those featured a spirited duel between Woods and Phil Mickelson, where he made up a two-stroke deficit in the final round and won by one.

Woods also has a penchant for winning World Golf Championships -- particularly this CA Championship. He has captured the Gene Sarazen Trophy five times on five different courses -- and is a phenomenal 10 of 15 in the stroke play events of the global series.

Asked to explain Woods' dominance, Sergio Garcia was at a rare loss for words. "You ask him and let me know," he said, laughing. "I don't know."

David Toms thinks Woods is simply able to ratchet his game up for events like the CA Championship, which features 49 of the top 50 players in the world.

"Maybe it's the golf courses," Toms said. "A lot of times we play very difficult, long golf courses in these tournaments. If you look at every single one of them, most of the time it's not a 20 type under par that's winning these tournaments.

"I think all of that factors into why he's had success. He just tends to play well in the big tournaments. He gets up for them mentally, physically. He paces himself. You know, he doesn't play as much maybe as some of the other players; maybe he's fresh coming in. I'm not sure, but he obviously has it figured out."

More important in the short term, though, was figuring out what fueled the frustrating 43 Woods shot on the final nine holes at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard. He went from possibly making one of his patented charges with a 2-under 33 on the front nine to a bogey-double bogey-triple bogey finish.

Those scores admittedly are more characteristic of a weekend duffer than the world No. 1. But Woods, who is confident he's fixed the issues with his swing, resisted the urge to dwell on those rather than look at the big picture.

"Well, you have to analyze it objectively," Woods explained. "Yeah, you say, okay, I had three bad holes right in a row at the very end. But the other 69 holes, I made some mistakes along the way that I need to rectify.

"So you have to look at each tournament objectively. You can't look at it just one hole, one shot, because I made too many mistakes throughout the entire tournament that going into Sunday, I probably should have been right next to the lead, if not leading, if I didn't make those silly mistakes."

Don't look for them tomorrow when the $8 million CA Championship begins.

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