On eve of CA Championship, Woods 'ready to win'

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Tiger Woods plays a practice round at dawn on Wednesday at Doral.

DORAL, Fla. -- It's another week and another test for the most famous surgically-repaired left knee in golf here at Doral and the World Golf Championships-CA Championship.

That knee, which famously belongs to world No. 1 Tiger Woods, is guaranteed 72 holes in this week's cut-free World Golf Championships event. Woods played a total of 32 holes two weeks ago in Tucson at the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship before being ousted in the second round by Tim Clark.

On Wednesday at Doral, Woods said the knee felt better than he expected it to after the Accenture Match Play Championship.

"Everything was better than I thought it would be," he said. "It was a big shot of confidence for me to get out there and play again and feel physically sound. To walk out there and play and then compete and get a feel for that competitive environment was everything I could possibly have imagined."

While Woods is encouraged by how his knee responded in Tucson, he's also a little cautious this week because of the unknown: how will it react in a 72-hole stroke-play event?

"Physically, I feel good," he said. "But getting into a stroke-play event where you're not playing an opponent and you're playing the golf course again, I'll have a better idea when the tournament is done."

And when the tournament is done, there's a good chance you could see the name "Woods" near the top of the leaderboard.

In all, Woods has won at Doral three times; including the CA Championship in 2007 (he won the CA Championship five times before it moved to Doral in '07).

When asked to put a percentage on the health of his knee, Woods got serious, but wouldn't give a number.

Instead, he confidently said, "I'm ready to win," he said. "That's why I'm here."

Who's going to argue with that?