Sept. 8 — Another PGA Tour playoff week, another question mark for TIger Woods. The top-ranked golfer has advanced steadily week to week during the race for the FedEx Cup and a T11th at the Deutsche Bank Championship helped him breeze into this week’s BMW Championship, the third stop on the playoffs calendar.
Top-5 or go home. This time, however, an okay week won’t do Woods any good. He needs a top-five finish to make it into the Tour Championship finals in Atlanta in two weeks if he hopes to defend his FedEx Cup title. After making the Ryder Cup team for the first time as a captain’s pick, rather than earning his spot as he has in the past, Woods entered the BMW again having to play his way into the action at Atlanta’s East Lake Golf Club.
Woods, who is also defending BMW champ, moved up to No. 51 in the FedEx Cup rankings after the weekend’s golf-fest at TPC Boston. That’s not bad for the improving golf ace, who began the playoffs in the 112th spot.
He’ll have to do better than that, though, to join the finale party. Indeed, Woods will need his best finish in some three months, since a T4 at the U.S. Open. If history is on his side, the world’s No. 1 could move on easily, since he’s had five victories at Cog Hill, this week’s FedEx Cup venue.
“Cog Hill has been a golf course I’ve been very comfortable at, ever since my amateur days,” Woods told reporters after his Labor Day Monday final-round score of 3-under 68 at the Deutsche Bank tourney. “I’m looking forward to going over there.”
Woods had also won previously on several courses he’s played this year, including the Deutsche Bank’s TPC Boston, so it’s hardly a certainty that he’ll clean up at Cog Hill.
Pointing the way. It’s all about the points in the playoff segment of the tour’s season. Without going into mind-numbing detail, Woods must accrue more than 500 points to make it into the top-30 field of golfers who’ll tee it up at Cog Hill. He might squeak in with a sixth-place finish, but there are several scenarios that would have to play out as well.
Lucky 13. The top 13, which includes Deutsche Bank champ Charley Hoffman at No. 2, are on their way to East Lake no matter how they play this week. Reigning Tour Championship titleholder Phil Mickelson will likely make his way to Atlanta, but he’ll tee off in Chicago two points out of the guaranteed grouping. His back-nine meltdown Monday resulted in a T25 at the Deutsche Bank event, knocking him out of the lucky 13.
First-time Charley. Hoffman, who soared from No. 59 in the FedEx Cup standings with his Labor Day win, will make his first Tour Championship appearance. The 33-year-old San Diego native with the long blond locks credited his coaches for his career-best 9-under 62 finish in the final round in Boston.
Without the help of both, Hoffman said he could never have come back from a four-shot deficit to capture his second tour victory and first since 2007.
“My instructor, Shawn Callahan, came out here on Friday and we worked pretty hard the last few days to get the swing so it felt good under pressure,” Hoffman said Monday. “Early in the week James Sieckmann was out here helping me with my short game. I don’t know if I could have done it without both those guys not out here this week.”
Sand saves. Hoffman credited Sieckmann, particularly, with helping him navigate the bunkers, from which he was a “borderline horrendous” 130th last year on tour. “I can tell you right now if I wouldn’t have met [Sieckmann], I wouldn’t have won this golf tournament,” said Hoffman. “I could barely get it out of the bunkers before, pretty shocking.”
Hoffman worked so diligently with Sieckmann on his sand game during the offseason that he hurt his left wrist and was on the DL for several weeks. But his efforts paid off, as he entered the BMW event at 70th from the bunkers.
The 47-year-old Callahan, by the way, is a Boston native from the Butch Harmon School of Golf. Sieckmann operates the Shadow Ridge Golf Academy in Omaha, Neb.
Boston fan club. Most of last weekend’s fans probably had little clue who that surfer dude, Hoffman, was. Mickey Hurley, president and perhaps sole member of the Charley Hoffman Fan Club-Boston Chapter, was not one of them.
“He’s my high school golf coach’s best friend,” Hoffman said. “He’s come out every year I’ve been here, supporting me — the years I’ve missed the cut and the years I’ve played well.”
Long journey. It’s been a long trip for Hoffman, from a struggling young golf pro who missed his first 16 cuts on the Nationwide Tour, to jarring an amazing 11 birdies in his last round at TPC Boston. He credited those missed cuts for his current success.
“There’s a lot more to golf than just playing golf — traveling, dealing with Monday qualifiers, time, how much you need to practice, how much you don’t need to practice,” Hoffman said. “I definitely learned a lot that first year on the Nationwide Tour, and I wouldn’t give it up for anything.”
No-cut policy. There is no cut in this week’s tourney or the Tour Championship. But even the top-13 players hope to squeeze into the top-five seeds. From that vantage point, any player who wins the last event takes home the FedEx Cup and its $10 million bonus.
Another pro-am no-show for Mickelson. After complaining loudly, and effectively, about Jim Furyk’s disqualification from the The Barclays after missing his pro-am tee time, Mickelson shunned his second consecutive pro-am event. Lefty attended a Deutsche Bank dinner party instead of teeing it up with the deep pockets who play in the pro-ams.
Wednesday, Mickelson’s sponsors requested his presence in the BMW tent later in the week instead of playing the pro-am, according to Golfweek’s Alex Miceli. Each pro is allowed two pro-am exemptions, which Mickelson had already used. The only way he was able to duck out of the BMW event was at the request of the sponsor, Miceli noted.
(Emily Kay is a regular contributor to New England Golf Monthly. Check her out at the Boston Golf Examiner and National Golf Examiner websites.)
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- Tiger Woods makes FedEx Cup playoffs after Atwal wins Wyndham Championship
- Tiger Woods likes his chances at TPC Boston despite lagging in FedEx Cup points
- Charley Hoffman wins Deutsche Bank Championship; Tiger Woods still No. 1
- Rory McIlroy to Tiger Woods: I want you in Ryder Cup
