Tiger Woods likes his chances at TPC Boston despite lagging in FedEx Cup points
By: Emily Kay on 09/03/10 09:03 AMNORTON, Mass., Sept. 3 -- With a weakening Hurricane Earl likely to dump some rain and blow some trees around at TPC Boston Friday afternoon, the golfers out on the course in front of the storm are likely to have a scoring advantage. Tiger Woods was not one of those golfers.
Luck of the draw. At No. 65 in FedEx Cup points, the still top-ranked golfer will have the unusual experience of teeing off on what will, no doubt, be the wrong side of the draw. He’ll hit his first shot at 11:42, at about the time that the outer reaches of Earl begin to move into Norton.
Luckily for Woods, Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, and other big names with later tee times, the weather will be far less severe than the prognosticators originally anticipated.
"It looks like Earl will shift further east, which should help us out today so we’ll be dry through noon,” PGA Tour’s onsite meteorologist Stewart Williams said Friday morning. “IInto early afternoon, we’ll have some showers but the worst will come at 5 p.m. and afterward.
"We’re going to play as long as we can,” Williams added. “[The impact] won’t be tremendous.”
As for Woods, who needs another solid weekend of play to advance to the third round of the FedEx Cup playoffs, the hurricane was likely the last thing on his mind. Just making it into the top 70 was an unusual place for Woods to be.
Different year. “Yes [it’s odd to be sitting at No. 65], and a little bit of no, too, as well, just because of obviously what’s transpired this year,” Woods affirmed during a Thursday afternoon press conference. “It’s been a different year."
Still, despite losing a few drives in the tall fescue and trees during Thursday’s pro-am, Woods remained upbeat about the progress of his game. His work with swing coach Sean Foley was beginning to pay dividends, even though the changes he’s undertaking are the fourth in his professional career.
“They’re three different philosophies, three different ways to hit a golf ball,” Woods said. “I went through two changes with Butch [Harmon], a swing change again with Hank [Haney], and now with Sean. There's a lot of learning to different philosophies, and that's probably the biggest thing is you first have to understand the philosophy in order to buy into it and then be committed to it.
“But I'm starting to see some progress, which is nice,” Woods added.
Check out pgatour.com for opening-round tee times.
(Emily Kay is a regular contributor to New England Golf Monthly. Check her out at the Boston Golf Examiner and National Golf Examiner websites.)
