Most of what you need to know about Tiger Woods' state of readiness as he prepares to embark on his world domination tour of 2008 can be contained in a couple of sentences.
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| Tiger Woods appears to be as determined and fit as ever entering '08. (Getty Images) |
Good to know, since this segment of the 2008 PGA Tour preview is about the hotspots on the upcoming schedule, where Woods again shall serve as a focal point. As usual, he's all about the major championships and this year presents a series of sites that has the world No. 1 raring to go, beginning with the locale of his season debut Jan. 24 in La Jolla, Calif.
Woods has won three consecutive Buick Invitational titles on San Diego's cliff-hugging public course, Torrey Pines, which for the first time will serve as the site of the U.S. Open in June. Woods hasn't won a national open title since 2002, the last time it was held at a public facility, coincidentally.
The British Open is being staged at Royal Birkdale, where he missed a playoff by a shot and finished third. He has never played a tournament at Detroit's Oakland Hills, site of the PGA Championship in August, as a pro, but the lengthy track Ben Hogan nicknamed the "monster" decades ago is right in Woods' muscular wheelhouse.
Woods already has won four titles at Augusta National, so while the media and public -- call us the judge and jury -- believe the season sets up for a possible run at the Grand Slam, so does the executioner.
"I think it's easily within reason," Woods said on his website last week.
That sounds fourboding, to coin a term. For Woods, as cautious as they come with regard to spouting bulletin-board material, a statement like that is tantamount to spray-painting his name on Phil Mickelson's car or toilet-papering Vijay Singh's house.
For the tight-lipped Woods, that's a Muhammad Ali-class boast, full of swagger and testosterone. Though Woods held all four major titles simultaneously over parts of 2000-2001, the Grand Slam has once been achieved in the same season, when Bobby Jones in 1930 captured the four titles that, at the time, stood as golf's fearsome foursome.
But we're getting ahead of ourselves. When it comes to the compelling places in 2008, put your brain in cruise control and let us do the plodding and plotting.
Several events on the tour potentially are facing pivotal years, either as it relates to their reputation, placement on the calendar, course tweaks or site changes, if not the impact from influences abroad.
Places of 2008
Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, Jan. 16-20: Give the venerable event credit for breaking its old, and admittedly musty, mold. For years, the Hope drew criticism for using creaky old desert courses in its rotation. Last year, the tournament moved to a new venue, the Classic Club, which is owned by the tournament. This year, a second course is being added to the four-track rotation, Silver Rock, another design by Arnold Palmer, whose name is nearly as synonymous with the event as Hope.
There are risks associated with forward-thinking tinkering, however. Novel or not, the Classic Course is located on the other side of Interstate 10 where the Mojave Desert winds blow so fiercely, trees grow sideways. After all, there's a reason why folks installed all those windmills along I-10, right?
Players, including Mickelson, who won't be returning this year, complained vigorously about the course, and he was the lone player from the world top 10 to appear in 2007. When the fix is worse than the fault, you've only contributed to the issue. Thus, the Hope is expected to produce the weakest field on the West Coast swing.
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| Woods has won three years in a row at Torrey Pines, the site of this year's U.S. Open. (Getty Images) |
Organizers and residents expected a banner field this year, since Torrey will host its first U.S. Open in June, but it hasn't happened. In fact, none of the winners from the past five Opens have committed and the field isn't markedly better than last year, according to the San Diego Union Tribune.
Why the paucity of players? The European Tour is in the midst of its desert swing throughout the Middle East, and the internationals have been staying home versus flying across multiple time zones to play on bumpy California greens.
Dubai Desert Classic, Jan. 31–Feb. 3: OK, so it's not a PGA Tour event, but to use one of commissioner Tim Finchem's officious verbs, it's been impactful in the States nonetheless. Just like last year, Woods plans to jet off to Dubai after his final round at Torrey, so the field abroad will surely be stronger than the one at the FBR Open in Phoenix.
Dubai is poised to become a key destination of the Euro Tour, and probably a few Americans as well, especially next year, when a mega-money, season-ending event will conclude the tour's 2008 season. Players once took a one-way road to the U.S. tour, but that no longer is the case. Woods is building his first course in Dubai as well.
Indian Masters, Feb. 7-10 Never heard of it? For good reason.
Having already made huge inroads with three events this season in China, the European Tour will co-sanction a pair of tournaments this year in India, exposing yet another hugely underserved population to the game at one of its highest levels.
While the India events aren't expected to siphon off any major U.S. talent, it stands as another philosophical shot across the bow for the PGA Tour, which will be staging the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.
Arnold Palmer Invitational, March 13-16: Last year, the top-shelf tournament underwent a name change in honor of its longtime host, aka the King. This time, it'll absorb a change on the calendar.
The former Bay Hill Invitational has always benefited by its proximity after preceding either the Players Championship or WGC event at Doral, which meant top foreign players trekked to Palmer's place as part of their monthlong pre-Masters warmup. This year, though, another tournament (New Orleans) has been inserted between the API and the Masters, creating a three-week gap between the end of the Palmer event and the season's first major.
Will the traditionally powerful field suffer? The WGC event at Doral was a dud last year, too, prompting British Open winner Padraig Harrington to intimate he might skip both key Florida events. Will other Euros follow suit?
Puerto Rico Open, March 20-23: This is a first-year event to be held opposite the limited-field World Golf Championships tournament at Doral in Miami, which means roughly 200 players will be polishing up their Spanish on the fly this week.
Based on reports, the host Coco Beach course, designed by Tom Kite and carved along the Caribbean and out of a tropical rainforest, sounds inviting. Depending on how you want to define "new," it stands as the first of five courses on the 2008 regular-tour schedule that have either been completely redesigned, will be employed for the first time or haven't been used for a tour event in decades.
Masters, April 10-13: Augusta National leadership has taken some well-deserved hits over the years with regard to its exclusionary membership practices, but it will be opening its doors this spring to thousands of kids aged 8-16, who will be admitted free as long as they are accompanied by ticket-holding fans.
The club said it's taking seriously its responsibility to grow the game by introducing it to a legion of young fans. Never thought you'd see the term forward-looking, "Masters" and "progressive" in the same sentence, huh?
Oh, and in what amounts to a standing headline in golf publications annually, they made a few more course changes, too.
EDS Byron Nelson Championship, May 24-27: Under the watch of former tour player D.A. Weibring, the lightly regarded TPC Las Colinas track has been given a complete enema, with every hole being retooled in a crucial attempt to convince star players to return to an event they lately have deserted in droves.
Worse, with the passing two years ago of Nelson, fewer stars have made the trek to Dallas out of loyalty, thinning the field further. Also, for the first time in a decade, the Cottonwood Valley course -– perhaps best known as the site where Woods' record cuts streak came to an end in mid-2005 -– won't be used for one of the live rounds, meaning it's imperative that the Las Colinas makeover is well-received since all 72 holes will be contested there.
The Nelson holds two distinctions -- it's generated more money for charity than any other stop on tour and it represents Dallas' largest sporting event. With the area's Colonial tournament also struggling to maintain its foothold as a top-level venue, the events in golf-steeped Texas have taken a serious slide this decade, if for no other reason than Woods hasn't played in either since he missed the Nelson cut.
U.S. Open, June 12-15: Inside the square, nondescript Torrey Pines clubhouse are several vintage photos of kids who played in the Junior World event at San Diego's landmark public course over the years, including Mickelson and Woods, back before anybody really knew they existed. It's funny stuff, especially given that the three have made a huge impact in the Open, or at Torrey Pines, as professionals.
Mickelson and Woods, two California natives, have combined to win the Buick invitational at Torrey six times, though the course will play to a par of 71 for the Open, with the 18th set up as a potentially dramatic, 600-yard par-5. Torrey Pines joins Pebble Beach (1972, 1983, 1992 and 2000 U.S. Opens) and Riviera Country Club (1948 Open, 1995 PGA) as the only courses in current use as annual PGA Tour sites to also host majors in the same year.
Oddly, though the Buick Invitational later this month was expected to draw a stellar field, that hasn't been the case. The desert swing on the European Tour has attracted several top players, with the Qatar Masters being held opposite the Buick.
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| O'Meara lifted the Claret Jug the last time the British Open was held at Royal Birkdale. (Getty Images) |
Some consider the club to be the best in England, though its modern clubhouse hardly fits the old-school images most have in their mind regarding historic courses in the U.K. It has hosted the event eight times and has twice served as home site of the Ryder Cup. Ten years ago, a gangly 17-year-old named Justin Rose holed out from the fairway on the last hole for a birdie, cementing a fourth-place tie, the best finish by an amateur in modern times. Can he improve on his magic? This time around, Rose returns as the holder of the European Tour money title last fall.
As for another youngster in the field, Woods, the first-round co-leader after a 65, birdied three of the last four holes on Sunday to make it close. Past winners at Birkdale – which often has produced some nightmarish weather conditions -- include Johnny Miller, Lee Trevino, Peter Thomson and Arnold Palmer.
PGA Championship, Aug. 7-10: A handful of the game's elite got a bite at Oakland Hills, the so-called Monster, at the 2004 Ryder Cup. The PGA's defending champion, Woods, would just as soon not look back. The U.S. lost by its biggest margin ever and he teamed with Mickelson in two ill-fated defeats that set the tone for the awful week.
Woods played in the 1996 U.S. Open at the venerable venue as an amateur and despite a solid start, finished 14 over par. The 18th, where Mickelson and Woods collapsed, could be a brutally decisive closing hole.
Wyndham Championship, Aug. 14-17: Better known in most circles as the Greater Greensboro Open, the old event is taking a step back in time. Though the site is listed on the official PGA Tour schedule as TBA, it's all but certain to move from Forest Oaks Country Club, which was recently upgraded to accommodate the increasingly whiny pros, to old Sedgefield Country Club.
Sedgefield last hosted the event in 1976 and produced a litany of top-tier winners, including Sam Snead, Billy Casper, Gary Player, Julius Boros, Gene Littler, Bob Charles, Chi Chi Rodriguez and Al Geiberger. Perhaps the move can strengthen what ranked as one of the thinnest fields of 2007. Sedgefield is more like wedgefield -– crammed into the schedule at the busiest time of the year for stars, between the PGA Championship and the first round of the FedEx Cup series. Thus, a stronger field is probably not a realistic dream.
BMW Championship, Sept. 4-7: Technically, the tour made a visit to Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis seven years ago, but the event was cancelled in the wake of 9-11. Most players, including Woods, had toured the course once or twice in practice when the news came that the Twin Towers and Pentagon had been bombed, and watched the aftereffects on the big-screen TVs stationed around the course.
The move from Chicago to St. Louis for 2008 was not without controversy, since it left the Second City without a big league sports event for the year. Initially, the plan was to rotate the BMW to various Midwest sites in alternate years from its base in Chicago, but the tour backed off the plan after the outcry grew into a chorus of boos. That said, Bellerive is considered one of the country's great private tracks and should present sports-crazy St. Louis an all-too-rare glimpse at the varsity players.
Ryder Cup, Sept. 19-21: Fans will recall that Valhalla was the site of Woods' dogfight with unheralded Bob May at the 2000 PGA Championship, considered by some to have been the greatest two-man playoff in years. If not multiple decades.
Whether anybody will recognize the course eight years later remains to be seen. Original designer Jack Nicklaus spruced up several holes in advance of the Ryder, changing several features or replacing green complexes on nearly every hole to offset 20 years of gains by equipment and the conditioning of players. Given that a few key players were rather critical of the design in 2000, that's probably a good thing.
Ginn sur Mer Classic, Oct. 30-Nov. 2: After a one-and-done debut in South Florida, the penultimate event on the tour moves to the Ginn Hammock Beach Resort's newly minted Conservatory Course, designed by Tom Watson.
Halfway through the construction of the course, Watson was told it might soon be hosting a Champions Tour event and cranked up the difficulty. In fact, when Champions Tour officials did a site visit, they found a few features to be so punitive, they were hesitant to green-light the tournament, which was eventually held on a nearby Nicklaus course, as it turned out. From the back tees, Watson's eye-popping design measures a staggering 7,776 yards, making it the second longest course in Florida when it opened two years ago.
The course aside, a bigger question is whether anybody will turn up to watch. The event is the third PGA Tour stop in the golf-saturated Orlando area, which hosts the longtime event at Disney World one week later.
