Thursday, October 18, 2001
Rusty or refreshed? Woods about to find
out
By DOUG FERGUSON
AP Golf Writer
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — Tiger Woods showed two sides
to his game while practicing for his first tournament after a
five-week layoff.
He was on the 165-yard third hole on the Magnolia Course at Disney
World when he felt a strong gust of wind on his face. Instead
of going back to his cart for a new club, he borrowed a 5-iron
from John Cook and hit a majestic shot 3 feet from the hole.
Not bad.
But on the par-5 eighth, he hooked his drive so badly that Mark
O'Meara chuckled.
“I've seen that before,” O'Meara said.
Woods took the dig in stride and shot back, “That's OK. I'll
still get my 5, or 6, or 7.”
He made par.
The scores count Thursday when Woods tees off in the National
Car Rental Classic, played with amateur partners for two days
on two courses next to the Magic Kingdom.
Not even Woods knows what to expect.
“Sometimes taking a break ... you tend to forget a lot of
your bad habits and hit the ball great, and putt the ball great,”
he said. “You don't really know until you get out there and
compete. That's one thing I'll have to feel out.”
The five-week break was not planned.
Woods was in St. Louis for the American Express Championship the
day hijacked airliners plowed into the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon. The tournament was called off, and Woods canceled
his trip to Paris the next week for the Lancome Trophy. That was
to be a tuneup for the Ryder Cup, which was postponed a year.
The time off has served him well.
“Obviously, things weren't supposed to work out this way,”
he said. “It worked out the best for me because I had time
to rest up physically, mentally and get things back in order.”
He will be going for his sixth PGA Tour victory of the year, and
Disney isn't a bad place for him to return.
He won the tournament twice in two great duels — against
the late Payne Stewart in 1996, and against Ernie Els in 1999
when Woods closed out the year by winning his last four PGA Tour
events.
He was in position to repeat at Disney last year until Duffy Waldorf
posted a 10-under 62 on the final day to move past Woods and Steve
Flesch.
Waldorf hasn't won since then, and wants to find him game quickly
so he can qualify for the Match Play Championship next spring
and the Masters.
Others have a more immediate need for good results. With only
three events left in the season, players like Paul Goydos (125),
Woody Austin (132) and Steve Pate (152) are trying to finish in
the top 125 on the money list to retain their cards for next year.
Charles Howell III, who started the year without exempt status,
has earned $1.4 million. He can make it into the Tour Championship
with a few more good tournaments.
“My first goal this year was conditional status, then it
was to earn enough to earn a tour card for next year. The shot-in-the-dark
goal was the Tour Championship,” Howell said. “That
would make the whole year even more special.”
Woods, meanwhile, is getting ready for his usual end-of-the-season
travels. After the Tour Championship in Houston at the end of
the month, he goes to China for an exhibition, to Japan for the
World Cup with David Duval, then the Grand Slam in Hawaii, the
Skins Game in California and his own Williams World Challenge
in Thousand Oaks, Calif.
The overseas events are still on, although Woods admits that could
change depending on developments in the war against terrorism.
There were changes evident in the golf world, too. Security, already
tight whenever Woods is on the course, has increased at every
PGA Tour event since the Sept. 11 attacks with a ban on bags larger
than a purse and random searches.
At Disney, not even the players are immune.
Woods found that out Wednesday morning when two security guards
ask him for identification. He flashed his driver's license, but
they wanted to see his tour badge.
“I don't have it,” Woods said after a brief search through
his pockets.
The guards looked at each other, unsure what to do next, and decided
to let him through the checkpoint to the Magnolia Course.
“I think he's won this tournament a couple of times,”
O'Meara assured them. “He's a pretty good player.”
How good he is after a five-week layoff will be determined over
the next four days, although Woods has won five times when returning
from breaks of at least three weeks.
“I'm itching to get with it, go out there and compete,”
Woods said. “For me, five weeks is a long time. I feel like
I'm mentally ready, physically ready and I just want to compete
again, something I love to do.”
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