Woods learning as fast as he can at WGC-Mexico Championship

MEXICO CITY – The 316-yard, par-4 opening hole at Club de Golf Chapultepec, host of this week’s World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship, plays downhill and is reachable off the tee with less than a driver.

Only the longest hitters, though, can cut the corner at the dogleg-right, 387-yard par-4 second hole. Playing with Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and Jon Rahm on Wednesday, Tiger Woods went for it but saw his ball curve too far left and skitter into the trees.

“Let me hit an iron,” he said. “How much is it to the corner, Joey?”

Told it was 240 yards, Woods hit a smooth iron shot that easily split the fairway.

As he prepares to tee it up in Mexico for the first time, Woods is learning as fast as he can at the quirky Club de Golf Chapultepec, which at 7,835 feet elevation presents unique challenges.

How far does a driver go? What about a wedge? What risks are worth taking?

“It was a lot tighter than I had thought,” Woods said Wednesday of his first look at the course, which consisted of playing the back nine with Billy Horschel and Justin Thomas the day before. “The ball was traveling, obviously, a long way. Some of our numbers on the range were a bit surprising, even on the golf course, how far it was going.

“The most interesting thing is the ball just doesn't curve up here at altitude,” he added. “There's just not enough resistance. Shots that I thought I shaped just didn't have any shape to it. That's going to be one of the things I need to get organized today and be ready for tomorrow.”

Woods, 43, has been relatively quiet this season. His first two starts, at the Farmers Insurance Open and the weather-delayed Genesis Open, which benefits his foundation, led to top-20s but Woods never seriously threatened to win for the 81st time on the PGA TOUR.

Now he comes to Mexico with an added challenge: He’s trying to learn the break of the greens and his lines off the tees as he contemplates equipment changes to adapt to the dizzying altitude.

A few of his wedge shots, he noted, flew 180 yards. That was different.

“Sunday I hit a 5-iron from 171,” he said, “and now I've hit a wedge further than that.”

The other takeaway: He had vocal fan support from—well, uh, that wasn’t entirely clear.

“I think yesterday was a closed day,” Woods said, smiling, “but there was a lot of people out there, a lot of members and a lot of kids that somehow just didn't go to school.”

Of his 80 TOUR wins, 13 have come on courses he was seeing for the first time. Five of those were in this very tournament, The 2006 edition of this event, which was played at The Grove outside London, is the last time Woods won on a course he was seeing for the first time. He won by eight.

This week may present the greatest test of his adaptability. The lowest point on the course is 7,603 feet above sea level, the highest 7,835. By comparison, Montreux Golf & Country Club, host of the TOUR’s Reno-Tahoe tournament, is 5,476-5,952 feet above sea level.

Still, Woods has found at least one thing familiar in the tree-lined fairways at Chapultepec.

“Layout-wise it's very similar to what we would face in some of the places in SoCal or up in the Bay Area where it's narrow, it's tight, trees overhang,” he said. “Some of these trees will swallow golf balls up. Reminds me very much of California golf courses. Again, kikuyu fairways, kikuyu rough, poa greens. The only difference is we're up here near 8,000 feet.”

As for his record, it speaks loudly: 18 WGC wins in nine different locations and four countries.

“I take a lot of pride in playing well in the biggest events,” he said. “That being obviously the majors, THE PLAYERS, and the World Golf Championships. I think my record has been pretty good in those events.

“Just because this event has been in different places,” Woods added, “it still gets the best players in the world, and I've always enjoyed competing against them and trying to beat them and win an event. I think I've had some success in World Golf Championships no matter where they're played.”