It took over a year, but Singh reaping benefits of changes
By Helen Ross, PGATOUR.COM Chief of Correspondents
The way Vijay Singh sees it, he's in a dream position.
All he has to do is complete 72 holes in THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola, sign his scorecard and he'll be $10 million richer. But don't expect Singh to stand back and watch someone else deliver at East Lake as he counts that money he'll earn by winning the FedExCup.
That's not Vijay Singh. That's not the World Golf Hall of Famer who has won 34 times on TOUR -- including a phenomenal 23 times since turning 40. That's not the man who willed his way to victory in the first two events of the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup and threatened to run the table.
"It's a great feeling to know that I'm going to go out there in Atlanta and all I need to do is tee it up and play and you've already won the FedExCup," Singh said Tuesday during a teleconference with national media. "(But) I want to make a point that I'm going to go out there and try to win the tournament.
"I love Atlanta. I love East Lake. I've had great success there. I know they've changed the golf course a little bit, but I'm going to be practicing next week and getting ready for the tournament. I want to go out there and win it and make a point that I can win three out of four weeks."
Not that anyone would doubt him. Singh won THE TOUR Championship in 2002 and he hasn't finished out of the top-10 any time he's played at East Lake. He'll go to Bobby Jones' home course again in two weeks rested and as the prohibitive favorite to win for the fourth time in his last seven starts this year.
Singh got the Playoffs off to a rousing start when he outlasted Sergio Garcia and Kevin Sutherland in extra holes at The Barclays. The Fijian who has overcome a crisis of confidence with his putter rolled in a 26-footer for birdie -- on top of Garcia's putt of one foot longer -- to extend the playoff then two-putted for another to win.
Next up was the Deutsche Bank Championship where Singh took a decisive five-stroke victory to reduce the potential FedExCup winners to an elite group of four. He admits he was looking at numbers last week at the BMW Championship, where he tied for 44th, but it turns out he need not have worried. Even with Camilo Villegas' breakthrough victory everyone else was mathematically eliminated, as long as Singh plays 72 holes in Atlanta.
"I was trying to figure out, hey, who's going to win and what would it take for me not to really do anything in Atlanta to win the Cup," Singh admitted. "Instead of going out there and actually focusing on the tournament, which I was doing most of the time, psychologically in the back of your head, you're still thinking about who's going to win, or if you don't win, who else is going to win that is going to make it a little bit more harder for me to go out there and play."
Singh's standout performance -- which also included a win over a stellar field at the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational -- has not been lost on his peers, or on PGA TOUR Commissioner Tim Finchem.
"I think recognizing the history of PGA TOUR golf and the priority we place and the special emphasis we place in our system on winning, to win twice in succession against these great fields, it was very, very appropriate that Vijay come out the winner in Atlanta," Finchem said.
Over the last 18 months, Singh has undergone a swing change, switched trainers and battled an injury to an abdominal muscle, as well as tendinitis in his left arm. The confidence he finally regained in the belly putter seemed to flow through Singh's entire psyche, too. Once he ended that 18-month victory drought in Akron, he was back on track.
"When you're not winning, that's when everything kind of gets a little shaky in your head," Singh said. "Then you start questioning if you've made the right choice or no. But my ballstriking always was good on the range, and I was working a lot on my putting and all, but the issue turned out to be more than just a mechanical issue, it was more mental than anything else on the greens, and it kind of flowed all the way down to my short game and all the way up to my long game.
"I think the change was the best thing I've done, and all I needed to do was start playing well, performing well and start winning. Winning was a key element there, and once I felt like that I could win with it, then obviously I needed to fix another little issue, and that was my putting. I kind of overcame that with some pretty good attitude change."
Singh credits his trainer, Jeffrey Fronk, with taking his fitness to a new level and Chad Reynolds, his caddie, who was there for those legendary practice sessions on the range at TPC Sawgrass. Together they turned around a season that saw the three-time major champion miss the cut at the U.S. Open and the PGA Championship.
"Those were the grueling part, coming back home on the weekends and not being out there and watching golf on TV," Singh said. "I hate doing that. ... Coming up with three wins in five events and knowing that I can do it and actually ... fixing the attitude change ... the sick feeling that I had over the short putts.
"But to be able to overcome that and win tournaments, those are the most satisfying things that I look back and say, wow, if I hadn't fixed that part of it, maybe who knows, this could have been the end of it. But to believe in it and go out there and do it and come out ahead, I think that was probably the most satisfying part of the whole postseason."
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