The TOUR Insider: Five reasons why Tiger rules at WGC events
By Helen Ross, PGATOUR.COM Chief of Correspondents
DORAL, Fla. -- Tiger Woods had just two majors and nine other titles on his resume when he won his first World Golf Championships event back in 1999.
Woods, then 24, had come close in the inaugural event of golf's global series, losing to the eventual champ, Jeff Maggert, in the quarterfinals of the Accenture Match Play Championship. He won the next two that year, though, and he's never looked back.
In World Golf Championships stroke-play events, as is often the case, Woods simply has had no peer -- winning 12 of the 19 tournaments entering this week's CA Championship.
In all, the incomparable Woods has won 15 World Golf Championships -- accounting for nearly a quarter of his 65 PGA TOUR victories. And he returns Thursday to try for No. 16 at Doral Resort and Spa, which happens to be the site of three of those TOUR wins.
With Tiger at 15, no one else is even close in the World Golf Championships victory department.
Geoff Ogilvy, who hopes to successfully defend his title at the CA Championship, picked up his third two weeks ago at the Accenture Match Play Championship. Darren Clarke is the only other player who has multiple World Golf Championships wins, with two.
The remaining 10 victories belong to Maggert, Henrik Stenson, David Toms, Kevin Sutherland and Steve Stricker, all at the Accenture Match Play Championship; and Vijay Singh, Stewart Cink, Craig Parry, Ernie Els and Mike Weir.
Think about it this way: Woods has as many wins as those other 12 players -- combined. So what makes the game's undisputed No. 1 player so tough in the World Golf Championships?
1. The caliber of the competition
Both the CA Championship and Bridgestone Invitational feature limited fields but are open to the top 50 players in the Official World Golf Ranking -- and most of them make a point of showing up at these prestigious events. Woods loves a challenge, and his competitive fire is stoked when he knows he's facing the top players in the game. Remember those 14 major championships?
2. His adaptability
Woods' six CA Championship titles have come on six different courses -- a testament to both to the way he can adjust to the surroundings and his incredible talent. He is a collective 80 under and only has two rounds over par at the six diverse venues -- Doral, The Grove in Hertsfordshire, England; Harding Park in San Francisco, The Capital City Club in Atlanta; Mount Juliet in Kilkenny and Valderrama in Sotogrande, Spain.
3. His local knowledge
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Woods has won six Bridgestone Invitationals at Firestone Country Club -- second only to his seven wins at Torrey Pines. He is a combined 69 under in those wins on the South Course in Akron and he has shot par or better in 20 of those 24 rounds. In fact, in 11 starts at Firestone, dating back to the 1998 NEC World Series of Golf, Tiger has never finished outside the top five.
And you can add Doral to that list of courses that fit Woods' eye. He won the 2007 CA Championship there, as well as the 2005 and '06 Ford Championships at Doral. He has never finished lower than ninth in his six appearances at the posh Miami resort.
4. The intimidation factor
He is the No. 1 player in the game, after all. With 14 majors and 65 career wins to his credit, no less. Need we say more? To a man, the players who have knocked off Woods in the Accenture Match Play Championship admitted they had nothing to lose. His presence on the leaderboard in stroke play hardly goes unnoticed, either. While there is no shortage of confidence among his competitors, they always know when he's making a charge.
5. His enormous will
He has won four times in playoffs -- including a scintillating one with Jim Furyk in 2001 that lasted seven holes and ended as darkness enveloped Firestone. Conversely, Woods' largest margin in stroke play is 11 shots and his most lopsided match play win came in a 9 and 8 decision over Stephen Ames in the first round in 2006. He's made the high start by the eventual champion and produced the low finish by a winner. Regardless of the situation, Woods has figured out a way to get the job done, which continues to set him apart from the crowd.
We're four days and 72 holes -- at the least -- from determining this year's winner of the CA Championship. Whether Woods gets No. 16 remains to be seen. Don't ever doubt, though, that he'll influence the outcome in a big way.
THE TIMES THEY ARE A TWITTERIN'
Parker McLachlin and Stewart Cink appear to be the first two PGA TOUR players to have embraced the social messaging and micro-blogging service called Twitter.
| 2 | Wire-to-wire winners at the CA Championship |
| 4 | Aces in CA Championship history |
| 9 | Top-10 finishes by Tiger Woods at the CA Championship |
McLachlin and Cink each began utilizing the service to reach out to their fans on Feb. 18th. Their "tweets" can be read at twitter.com/ParkerMcLachlin and twitter.com/StewartCink.
Cink decided to start using Twitter after watching an episode of ESPN's "PTI" that mentioned how Chris Bosh of the Toronto Raptors was using the network to make "direct, unfiltered contact" with his fan base.
'I think it's a pretty good way to establish a connection between you and the fans because it's tough to really establish a connection and be friends with everybody," Cink said. "It's important, too, that they feel like you're giving them something they wouldn't just read in Golf Magazine or on (PGATOUR.COM). So when I saw that, that's he was using it for that, I thought it was a pretty good idea for me to start doing it and I did it."
Cink tries to update his Twitter site every day. He uses an application on his iPhone that his teenage son suggested to post the "tweets."
"Usually it has something to do with the round or maybe lost a bag at the airport," Cink said. "Little things -- stuff that you're not going to read about anywhere else. The main thing is I want the people out there who follow my progress out on TOUR to understand I'm not just a golfer, but I'm also a person and we all go through some of the same traveling disasters, scenarios and headaches and things like that."
To check out the PGA TOUR's twitter feed, click here.
LAST WORD
"Well, I have a sense of humor."
-- Anthony Kim, when told that sports psychologist Bob Rotella didn't like the Nike commercial welcoming Tiger Woods back because he felt the players who participated put themselves in a differential position with the game's No. 1 player.
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