Wednesday
Sep082010
Woods improving as 107th Western / BMW nears
Wednesday, September 8, 2010 at 10:39AM
Writing from Lemont, Illinois
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
There was a time when Tiger Woods was the favorite in any tournament he entered.
That time may be close to occurring again.
Woods’ play last week at the Deutsche Bank Championship in Norton, Mass., showed that the sullied superstar is on the way back. He finished with three rounds in the 60s. He climbed to 51 in the PGA Tour’s point standings.
A similar performance this week at Cog Hill, where the 107th Open Championship of the Western Golf Association commences Thursday morning with Marc Leishman’s tee shot at 8 sharp, and Woods should assure himself a position in the standings’ top 30, and thus a berth in the Tour Championship, a fortnight hence, in Atlanta.
Woods, in qualifying to defend the title he won last year – and to seek a record sixth Western, which these days is played under the sobriquet of the BMW Championship – is only now beginning to emerge from the mess he brought unto himself last fall. The discovery of serial adultery broke up his marriage, cost him sponsors, brought him public excoriation, and finally resulted in a nationally televised apology two months before he took to the links again.
That was at The Masters, which remains his most successful tournament of the year. Since then, Woods has struggled. However, since connecting with teacher Sean Foley, Woods’ game has perked up. He’s finding more fairways, more greens, and the cup more quickly.
Wednesday, Woods admitted for the first time that he didn’t search for another teacher after Hank Haney dropped him because too much of his life was in disorder.
“Let’s just say I’ve been through a lot lately, and I didn’t want to have any more information,” Woods said. “I was trying to get adjusted to my new life and what that entailed, and it was enough as it was. I didn’t have time to work on my game. I was dealing with a lot of other things.”
Woods is not the favorite to win this week, though if he did, it would break the five-title tie he has with Walter Hagen. Instead, there are a group of players who might find themselves battling each other when the final nine holes rolls around on Sunday afternoon.
Steve Stricker, the winner of the 1996 Western, is in that group. The Wisconsin native and Illinois graduate has four top-9 finishes in his last six tournaments, including a repeat win at the John Deere Classic. That was his second win of the year, and as summer is about to be pushed aside by fall, Stricker is still humming along, sitting third in the playoff standings and on the money list.
“My game kind of turned (for the better) the same time the FedEx system came around, and it’s been good,” Stricker said, noting he won the first playoff tournament in 1997. “We’ve gone to courses I’ve had some success on, so it’s always nice to come here. The course is a lot different now, but obviously still pretty much the same surroundings.”
Except, Stricker said in the wake of Rees Jones’ renovation, the greens.
“I think Rees Jones did a great job visually,” Stricker said. “The greens, on the other hand, are somewhat different, to put it nicely. He’s got a characteristic about them that I don’t really care for. But that’s just my personal feeling.
“The green complexes are pretty difficult. Other than that, he did a great job with the way it looks. Playability is pretty tough, particularly when we get the greens firm and fast.”
Stricker didn’t elaborate, but the two-tier nature of several greens, particularly the par-5 15th, has come in for criticism.
What Stricker doesn’t believe has changed at Cog Hill is the atmosphere.
“It still feels like a Western Open to me,” Stricker said. “The same Western Golf Association guys are running it, guys I’ve gotten to know over the years. Winning here, being a past champion here, coming back here, it still feels like a Western Open to me even though it’s the BMW Championship. So it really doesn’t have a different feel to me except when you look around, you see a lot more white tents and BMW signs around.”
Rickie Fowler, who has already won in Chicago’s south suburbs, also comes in primed. The Ryder Cup selectee is on a high since Corey Pavin called him and said he’d be on the U.S. PGA team.
“It’s a ball-striker’s course,” Fowler said of Cog Hill. “I liked the layout. You’ve got to drive it well to look at a lot of these pins. The greens are going to be tough – they’re already a little bit firm. If I play well, it’s a lot easier than missing fairways and trying to get up-and-down all day.”
Fowler, who won at Olympia Fields Country Club in the Illinois Invitational while at Oklahoma State, will be easy to find on Sunday. He’ll be the guy dressed in head-to-toe orange, an ode to his days as a Cowboy.
The third likely contender is Luke Donald, Chicago’s very own European Ryder Cupper. The Northwestern graduate tied for second at TPC Boston, jumping from 17th to fifth place in the point standings. If he stays fifth or improves his placing, he can win the FedEx Cup and the $10 million bonus that goes with it by winning at East Lake. That gives him two things to shoot for this week, but he said he’ll focus only on one.
“I’ll just approach this just like any other tournament, playing holes the best way I think will create as many birdie opportunities for me,” Donald said. “This week is no different than others. If I have a chance to win, I’ll be concentrated on winning the tournament. I certainly won’t be looking at where I am on the FedEx Cup. I know if I play well, hopefully I can keep that position or improve on it.”
There are 66 other players in the field, and no cut, so a bad first round doesn’t necessarily knock a player out of an opportunity to win on Sunday.
Given the quality on the tour, anyone in the field can win, even an unknown like Tom Gillis, who played in the 2005 Western, missing the cut, and couldn’t even stick on the Nationwide Tour, the PGA Tour’s version of Triple A baseball, a couple of years ago. But he went to the Gateway Tour, began to win, and made it all the way back.
“I thought I was going to make a comeback, but do you really know how far you’re going to get?” the 42-year-old Gillis said. “Are you going to get this far? I don’t know. I still feel like I’ve got farther to go. I still know for a fact and I believe in my heart I can win out here. It’s very gratifying.
“I’m humbled that I’m this far, and I still think I can go farther, but I’m excited.”
Gillis said one other thing, sounding exactly like Tiger Woods when he did.
“Why would you play if you didn’t think you could win?” Gillis said. “I thought I could, and I still think I can.”
It’s hard not to like a Tom Gillis. He’ll be on the 10th tee with Brian Davis at 8:10 a.m. Thursday.
Missing in action I
It’s been a while since only one of the reigning major champions has been in the field at Cog Hill, but that’s the case this week. Only Phil Mickelson – who wore his green jacket from winning The Masters at a Krispy Kreme drive through the morning after triumph No. 3 at Augusta National – is playing. Graeme McDowell (U.S. Open), Louis Oosthuizen (British Open) and Martin Kaymer (PGA Championship) are European Tour regulars and nowhere near Cog Hill.
Lee Westwood, the fifth-leading money winner on the PGA Tour this year, is also absent. Despite winning $3,399,954, he doesn’t get a spot because, like McDowell, Oosthuizen and Kaymer, he’s not a PGA Tour member. His earnings are listed only on the non-member page of the money list.
Missing in action II
Phil Mickelson’s absence from the 48th Chick Evans Memorial Pro-Am was announced in advance, but only Wednesday did the PGA Tour announce how Mickelson wiggled out of it. The announcement, in full:
“A top 30 player (prior year money or FEC) has the ability to elect out of the Pro-Am up to 2 times per year, which Phil Mickelson did at Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard and The Deutsche Bank Championship. In this instance, Mickelson was ‘shifted’ out at the request of the BMW Championship to perform an event in lieu of his Pro-Am participation – in both a shift and elect, it has to be mutually agreeable by both parties and approved by the TOUR.”
So this was a shift, not an elect, for whatever that’s worth. Mickelson tees off at 12:50 p.m. Thursday, starting on the 10th tee,
Around Dubsdread
It took a $9,000 donation to the Evans Scholars Foundation to play in this year’s Pro-Am. With all 156 spots filled, and assuming no giveaways, that’s $1,404,000 into the coffers of the caddies-to-college program the Western Golf Association has promoted since 1923. That could account for more than half this week’s tournament take, given the high expenses associated with putting on the elaborate show at Cog Hill. ... Corporate suite sales are up about 10 percent this year, but individual advance ticket sales are down slightly, WGA CEO John Kazckowski said. A good walkup week, which could happen with good weather forecast and the potential of a star-studded leader board, and the WGA could exceed the $1.6 million it cleared from the Western in 2009. That compares to $2.4 million at Cog Hill in 2007, the first year the renamed Western was played in September rather than July, and $3.3 million at Bellerive Country Club, near St. Louis, in 2008.
– Tim Cronin
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
There was a time when Tiger Woods was the favorite in any tournament he entered.
That time may be close to occurring again.
Woods’ play last week at the Deutsche Bank Championship in Norton, Mass., showed that the sullied superstar is on the way back. He finished with three rounds in the 60s. He climbed to 51 in the PGA Tour’s point standings.
A similar performance this week at Cog Hill, where the 107th Open Championship of the Western Golf Association commences Thursday morning with Marc Leishman’s tee shot at 8 sharp, and Woods should assure himself a position in the standings’ top 30, and thus a berth in the Tour Championship, a fortnight hence, in Atlanta.
Woods, in qualifying to defend the title he won last year – and to seek a record sixth Western, which these days is played under the sobriquet of the BMW Championship – is only now beginning to emerge from the mess he brought unto himself last fall. The discovery of serial adultery broke up his marriage, cost him sponsors, brought him public excoriation, and finally resulted in a nationally televised apology two months before he took to the links again.
That was at The Masters, which remains his most successful tournament of the year. Since then, Woods has struggled. However, since connecting with teacher Sean Foley, Woods’ game has perked up. He’s finding more fairways, more greens, and the cup more quickly.
Wednesday, Woods admitted for the first time that he didn’t search for another teacher after Hank Haney dropped him because too much of his life was in disorder.
“Let’s just say I’ve been through a lot lately, and I didn’t want to have any more information,” Woods said. “I was trying to get adjusted to my new life and what that entailed, and it was enough as it was. I didn’t have time to work on my game. I was dealing with a lot of other things.”
Woods is not the favorite to win this week, though if he did, it would break the five-title tie he has with Walter Hagen. Instead, there are a group of players who might find themselves battling each other when the final nine holes rolls around on Sunday afternoon.
Steve Stricker, the winner of the 1996 Western, is in that group. The Wisconsin native and Illinois graduate has four top-9 finishes in his last six tournaments, including a repeat win at the John Deere Classic. That was his second win of the year, and as summer is about to be pushed aside by fall, Stricker is still humming along, sitting third in the playoff standings and on the money list.
“My game kind of turned (for the better) the same time the FedEx system came around, and it’s been good,” Stricker said, noting he won the first playoff tournament in 1997. “We’ve gone to courses I’ve had some success on, so it’s always nice to come here. The course is a lot different now, but obviously still pretty much the same surroundings.”
Except, Stricker said in the wake of Rees Jones’ renovation, the greens.
“I think Rees Jones did a great job visually,” Stricker said. “The greens, on the other hand, are somewhat different, to put it nicely. He’s got a characteristic about them that I don’t really care for. But that’s just my personal feeling.
“The green complexes are pretty difficult. Other than that, he did a great job with the way it looks. Playability is pretty tough, particularly when we get the greens firm and fast.”
Stricker didn’t elaborate, but the two-tier nature of several greens, particularly the par-5 15th, has come in for criticism.
What Stricker doesn’t believe has changed at Cog Hill is the atmosphere.
“It still feels like a Western Open to me,” Stricker said. “The same Western Golf Association guys are running it, guys I’ve gotten to know over the years. Winning here, being a past champion here, coming back here, it still feels like a Western Open to me even though it’s the BMW Championship. So it really doesn’t have a different feel to me except when you look around, you see a lot more white tents and BMW signs around.”
Rickie Fowler, who has already won in Chicago’s south suburbs, also comes in primed. The Ryder Cup selectee is on a high since Corey Pavin called him and said he’d be on the U.S. PGA team.
“It’s a ball-striker’s course,” Fowler said of Cog Hill. “I liked the layout. You’ve got to drive it well to look at a lot of these pins. The greens are going to be tough – they’re already a little bit firm. If I play well, it’s a lot easier than missing fairways and trying to get up-and-down all day.”
Fowler, who won at Olympia Fields Country Club in the Illinois Invitational while at Oklahoma State, will be easy to find on Sunday. He’ll be the guy dressed in head-to-toe orange, an ode to his days as a Cowboy.
The third likely contender is Luke Donald, Chicago’s very own European Ryder Cupper. The Northwestern graduate tied for second at TPC Boston, jumping from 17th to fifth place in the point standings. If he stays fifth or improves his placing, he can win the FedEx Cup and the $10 million bonus that goes with it by winning at East Lake. That gives him two things to shoot for this week, but he said he’ll focus only on one.
“I’ll just approach this just like any other tournament, playing holes the best way I think will create as many birdie opportunities for me,” Donald said. “This week is no different than others. If I have a chance to win, I’ll be concentrated on winning the tournament. I certainly won’t be looking at where I am on the FedEx Cup. I know if I play well, hopefully I can keep that position or improve on it.”
There are 66 other players in the field, and no cut, so a bad first round doesn’t necessarily knock a player out of an opportunity to win on Sunday.
Given the quality on the tour, anyone in the field can win, even an unknown like Tom Gillis, who played in the 2005 Western, missing the cut, and couldn’t even stick on the Nationwide Tour, the PGA Tour’s version of Triple A baseball, a couple of years ago. But he went to the Gateway Tour, began to win, and made it all the way back.
“I thought I was going to make a comeback, but do you really know how far you’re going to get?” the 42-year-old Gillis said. “Are you going to get this far? I don’t know. I still feel like I’ve got farther to go. I still know for a fact and I believe in my heart I can win out here. It’s very gratifying.
“I’m humbled that I’m this far, and I still think I can go farther, but I’m excited.”
Gillis said one other thing, sounding exactly like Tiger Woods when he did.
“Why would you play if you didn’t think you could win?” Gillis said. “I thought I could, and I still think I can.”
It’s hard not to like a Tom Gillis. He’ll be on the 10th tee with Brian Davis at 8:10 a.m. Thursday.
Missing in action I
It’s been a while since only one of the reigning major champions has been in the field at Cog Hill, but that’s the case this week. Only Phil Mickelson – who wore his green jacket from winning The Masters at a Krispy Kreme drive through the morning after triumph No. 3 at Augusta National – is playing. Graeme McDowell (U.S. Open), Louis Oosthuizen (British Open) and Martin Kaymer (PGA Championship) are European Tour regulars and nowhere near Cog Hill.
Lee Westwood, the fifth-leading money winner on the PGA Tour this year, is also absent. Despite winning $3,399,954, he doesn’t get a spot because, like McDowell, Oosthuizen and Kaymer, he’s not a PGA Tour member. His earnings are listed only on the non-member page of the money list.
Missing in action II
Phil Mickelson’s absence from the 48th Chick Evans Memorial Pro-Am was announced in advance, but only Wednesday did the PGA Tour announce how Mickelson wiggled out of it. The announcement, in full:
“A top 30 player (prior year money or FEC) has the ability to elect out of the Pro-Am up to 2 times per year, which Phil Mickelson did at Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard and The Deutsche Bank Championship. In this instance, Mickelson was ‘shifted’ out at the request of the BMW Championship to perform an event in lieu of his Pro-Am participation – in both a shift and elect, it has to be mutually agreeable by both parties and approved by the TOUR.”
So this was a shift, not an elect, for whatever that’s worth. Mickelson tees off at 12:50 p.m. Thursday, starting on the 10th tee,
Around Dubsdread
It took a $9,000 donation to the Evans Scholars Foundation to play in this year’s Pro-Am. With all 156 spots filled, and assuming no giveaways, that’s $1,404,000 into the coffers of the caddies-to-college program the Western Golf Association has promoted since 1923. That could account for more than half this week’s tournament take, given the high expenses associated with putting on the elaborate show at Cog Hill. ... Corporate suite sales are up about 10 percent this year, but individual advance ticket sales are down slightly, WGA CEO John Kazckowski said. A good walkup week, which could happen with good weather forecast and the potential of a star-studded leader board, and the WGA could exceed the $1.6 million it cleared from the Western in 2009. That compares to $2.4 million at Cog Hill in 2007, the first year the renamed Western was played in September rather than July, and $3.3 million at Bellerive Country Club, near St. Louis, in 2008.
– Tim Cronin
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