- FedExCup Points: 50,000
- Purse: $7.0 million
- Winning Share: $1,260,000
- Yards: 7,415
PGATOUR.com Chief of Correspondents
NORTON, Mass. -- Tiger Woods didn't touch a club for 10 days after he won the PGA Championship, and even after he starting practicing again, the game's No. 1 player had plenty of other things to keep him busy.
Woods rang the bell to open the N.Y. Stock Exchange on Tuesday about 90 minutes after he appeared on NBC's "Today Show." He then launched the Tiger Woods PGA TOUR '08 game later that day in conjunction with EA SPORTS.
| FEATURED CONTENT |
• Video: Woods on his father and baseball
• Video: Woods on Boston sports fans
|
Tuesday night, Woods even found time to attend a game between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox in Yankee Stadium. Woods, whose late father played baseball in the Negro Leagues, sat right behind home plate as the Yankees won 5-3.
Two days later, Woods would plead the fifth -- "I'm a Dodgers fan," he said with a sly smile -- when asked by a reporter at the Deutsche Bank Championship which team he had been rooting for that night.
Regardless of his allegiance, though, Woods is clearly the center of attention in this Boston suburb as the second event of the inaugural PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup gets under way on Friday. That spotlight is not surprising, to be sure, but there is a heightened sense of intrigue as Woods returns to competition.
Saying he was physically spent after consecutive wins at the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational and the PGA, you see, Woods had opted to skip the first Playoff event last week.
As a result, Steve Stricker, who won The Barclays, took over the top spot in the FedExCup standings from Woods, who is now 4,950 points behind. Woods actually dropped all the way down to fourth behind K.J. Choi, who was second at Westchester, and Rory Sabbatini, who finished third.
"That's about right, isn't it?" Woods said philosophically as he pondered the change Thursday. "Between three and five guys, somewhere in there. There are so many points available. ... It makes things pretty exciting coming down to the last few weeks."
And Friday will be a darn good start.
Woods plays with Phil Mickelson and Vijay Singh at 1:07 p.m. ET and the three have a return engagement at the TPC Boston on Saturday at 8:22 a.m. Pairings for the first two rounds of the Playoffs are based on a player's position in the standings.
The only time all three have ever been paired together was at the 2005 PGA Grand Slam of Golf. Woods won the head-to-head competition, beating Mickelson by seven and Singh by 13.
Looking ahead to their date on Friday afternoon, though, Woods was characteristically low-key.
"I think you're always trying to get yourself in position," he said. "Yeah, you can have a great pairing, but just like anything, you've just got to keep playing along, keep plugging along and see where you are come Monday."
And make no mistake about it, Woods is all about the Ws. He already has won five times this year, and he could make it three-in-a-row when the Deutsche Bank Championship concludes on Labor Day.
"I don't think if you're ready to win, there's really no point in playing," Woods said. "That's how I've always played. That's why I've played a very limited schedule, and when I come to play, I come to win, period.
"I want to give it my best in order to do that. That's allowing myself to prepare both physically and mentally."
Hence, the two-week layoff. Woods said he lost "quite a bit of weight" during that steamy two-week stretch that featured temperatures of more than 100 degrees each day at Southern Hills. The mental grind of contention was even more draining.
Judging by the 8-under 63 Woods shot in Thursday's pro-am at the TPC Boston, though, the defending champion has his game face on. He's ready to compete again and try to win the inaugural FedExCup.
"Any time you win something that's never been done before," Woods said, "it's always meaningful."
That said, Woods enters this three-week stretch with a ton of confidence.
Not only is he the defending champ at the TPC Boston, he has won twice at next week's venue, Cog Hill, and has two runner-up finishes there, as well. He's never won at East Lake, which hosts THE TOUR Championship, but he's finished second there three times.
The Deutsche Bank Championship and next week's BMW Championship each offer 9,000 points to the winner while the ante is upped even more at THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola where first gets 10,300. So Woods can gain ground quickly if he does what he came to do.
"I'm looking forward to it," Woods said. "I know I've slipped back in the standings, but there's plenty of points out there, and I'm just going to go out there and get some Ws."
