Notebook: Woods' tall task at BMW, how Fowler got his Ryder Cup call

Stan Badz/PGA TOUR

Tiger Woods has to finish in the top five at the BMW Championship to advance to THE TOUR Championship. You want to bet against him?

LEMONT, Ill. -- If there is anything we've learned about Tiger Woods in the last 15 years or so, it's not to put anything past him.

Remember that U.S. Open he played on one leg and won -- in 91 holes, no less -- at Torrey Pines? And what about the 1997 Masters that he won by 12 shots? Or those 15- and eight-stroke victories at the U.S. Open and British Open in 2000?

Need we say more?

Well, Woods faces some pretty long odds this week at the BMW Championship. Yes, we know he's the defending champion of the third event in the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup and he has won a total of five tournaments at Cog Hill.

But Woods must finish fifth or better this week just to have a chance to advance to THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola. The world No. 1 came to Chicago as the Playoffs frontrunner in 2007 and 2009 (Woods was absent two years ago after having reconstrutive surgery on the ACL in his left knee) -- not as someone who is battling to advance each week.

Woods' game is once again a work in progress after a tumultous nine months that has seen the recent dissolution of his marriage. At the same time, though, now that those details have been worked out, Woods said Wednesday his life is "much more in balance" and he's been able to concentrate on his golf game again.

The work Woods has been doing with Sean Foley starting at the PGA Championship has paid off with ties for 12th and 11th in his last two starts -- which also happen to have come in the first two Playoffs events. That's cause for optimism, to be sure, but make no mistake, Woods' goals haven't changed.

"Winning has always been a priority," Woods said. "That's why I'm in any event. I don't play in an event just to play. Why do that? I'm in the event to win the tournament, and that's the goal, and it's always been that way since I was very little."

A win, of course, would take care of many things. Not only would it give Woods a ticket to Atlanta, it would put Woods in the all-important top five -- players who control their own destiny at East Lake. Second place would likely do the same but third would only boost Woods to eighth.

Everyone who makes it to East Lake has a mathematical chance to win the FedExCup. But only the top five are guaranteed the $10 million bonus with a win at THE TOUR Championship. Woods has been there, done that -- and he's at Cog Hill bidding for another chance to do it again.

RICKIE FOWLER GOT THE NEWS he had hoped for on Monday night, and the newly-named Ryder Cupper sees the BMW Championship as a chance to relax and get back into contention now that the pressure has been lifted.

Fowler

"It's nice to have a little bit of a load off my shoulders with the Ryder Cup pick and kind of just be able to play for the FedExCup, try and get some points this week and move on to THE TOUR Championship," said the wunderkid, who ranks 25th in points heading into the third Playoffs event.

Fowler got the call from U.S. Captain Corey Pavin after he went out to dinner with Bubba Watson, one of four other rookies on the team. Only later did he find out Watson -- like the other seven players who made the American team automatically -- was texting Pavin with his input on his four picks.

"Once Bubba knew that I got picked, he called me -- actually he texted me first -- and asked ... what I was doing, if I got a phone call," Fowler said. "I said, 'maybe,' just kind of messing around with him. He called me, and he's like, 'you know at dinner I was texting Corey the whole time. We were trying to figure out who was going to be on the team.'

"What was cool about the whole situation is that Corey brought in all the assistants and all the team members to basically help him out pick the last four guys, which I thought was pretty cool, because it makes the players basically pick their own team in a way. Obviously Corey makes the final decision.

"So ... I had no indication to believe that I was going to be on the team or off the team. I was kind of sitting there teetering back and forth on top of the fence."

Pavin had told the 12 or so potential candidates they would hear from him -- one way or the other -- on Monday night. The long-awaited and much-anticipated call finally came around 9:30 p.m.

"The conversation started out very short, just asked what I was up to, what I had done for the night, and then basically went right into saying, 'hey, would you like to be a part of the U.S. Ryder Cup team?'" Fowler remembered.

"I didn't have to think about that too much. Told him I'd love to, and it went from there to basically spending some time figuring out some details for the weeks upcoming. ... It's pretty cool to have the opportunity to go over there and definitely looking forward to it."

AFTER HE HAD DINNER WITH WATSON, Fowler passed the time back at the hotel playing MX vs. ATV Reflex, a PlayStation dirt-bike racing game, with his father, who raced the real thing in the 1980s but hasn't quite caught on to the video version. Fowler has the Tiger Woods 2010 game, and he's thinking he should add the Ryder Cup Challenge.

"I know Bubba has been playing it, so maybe he and I will get a few practice rounds in together," Fowler said, grinning.

Fowler, a two-time Walker Cupper, feels he can be a "rover" and play with a variety of his U.S. teammates. The Oklahoma State product wears all orange on Sundays but he won't stand out for his distinctive clothing at Celtic Manor. Pavin has set the team uniforms, and they are likely much more conservative than the 21-year-old's extremely youthful and colorful style.

"I haven't heard any indications on hats," said Fowler, who wore his flat-brim graphic one rally-style on Wednesday. "There's no orange in the line I don't think. But I am going to get a little haircut. It's getting a bit long for me right now. So who knows, I may have (U.S. Amateur champ) Peter Uihlein have the hat reminder next to us, and maybe we'll video him giving me a haircut next week."

The PGA TOUR rookie finished 20th in points, even though he only had a year to accure any. A tie for fifth at the Farmers Insurance Open coupled with solo second at the Waste Management Phoenix Open got Fowler thinking he had a chance, and three more top-six finishes certainly helped sway Pavin.

So now he's made the Ryder Cup team, and he's earned more than $2 million so his playing privileges for 2010 are secure. There's just one more thing to accomplish.

"The one that's kind of left out right now is the win, or multiple wins, but we still need to get the first one first," Fowler said, and Cog Hill would be a great place for the breakthrough.