The Post Courier's Jeff Hartsell is the local man on the spot this week (Twitter link here) and reports that Tiger was first out at Kiawah this morning for the PGA Championship and besides the dying winds today, players are noticing that it's a tad warm. (At least the T-storm chance drops to 40% starting Thursday.)
But Tiger's "start lines" are good, so we can all relax now.
“I putted well the last two days, which was good,” he said. “I made some putts. And more importantly, I hit the ball on my start lines, and that’s something I did not do the first couple days. I misread a couple, but that’s just the way it goes. But at least every putt was starting on the right line, and that’s something that I’m very excited about going into next week.”
Tiger has committed to play the CIMB Classic in 2012 (Oct. 25-28), but more intriguing than that news was the confirmation that starting in 2013, the stop will be an official part of the PGA Tour schedule and FedExCup.
CIMB Group also announced that beginning in 2013, the CIMB Classic will be upgraded to an Official Money Event on the PGA TOUR and will be part of the season-long FedExCup competition. The field will also be expanded to include a minimum of 78 players and will carry a total purse of $7 million.
Wow, 78 players for $7 million and FedExCup points? The rich get richer!
"The plan has always been to become a full fledged event of the PGA TOUR, so this is fantastic news for us, for Malaysia and for the region," said Nazir as he announced that CIMB had signed a new five-year deal with PGA TOUR.
PGA TOUR Commissioner Tim Finchem said, "In just two years, the CIMB Classic has become an important part of the PGA TOUR schedule and we are excited that this relationship has been extended for an additional five years. The tournament will continue to grow in stature as it becomes an official event and part of the FedExCup in our 2013-2014 season."
"Congratulations to the nation of Malaysia and the CIMB Group on this important announcement," added Finchem.
The quote in Randall Mell'sitem on Grace's third day in a row paired with Tiger reads like Grace is being held at gun point...and no I looked, he's not represented by Steiny. Yet.
“I hadn’t played with him before, but now, to have played with him three days in a row, has been unreal,” Grace said. “I've learned a hell of a lot from playing with him. The way he plays shots, the way he handles himself and things like that, has been great. He's there because he is the best in the world. I've seen it now, and I think people really criticize him, that is wrong. He's one hell of a guy, and he's pretty much the nicest guy I've ever played with.”
There is something wrong if Tiger is this agreeable to play with. Mercifully, they are not paired together again tomorrow.
I had the task of tracking Tiger for Golf World and I was fascinated by his conservative approach, something detailed in my story. Reading it again after filing Monday morning I probably reported a little too much blow-by-blow of his final round, but he still had a chance to win after his unlucky triple bogey.
However, the inability to fight the wind with a draw at 11 and the stubbornness to play safe at 13 and 14 when he need to shake the reins and press the pedal, took him out of the tournament as much the triple did.
John HuggananalyzesTiger's conservative strategy of just five drivers through three rounds and comes away impressed but also points out why it might not work with Sunday's breeze.
And this week is similar. So far, the longest club in his bag has made only five appearances, as the 14-time major champion has plotted his way around a sadly soft and almost becalmed Royal Lytham.
It was not the scoring, which saw Scott denied an eagle by the barest margin and the Tiger always giving himself too much to do to glean a birdie, but the profound difference in their strategies.
Really, it was a gulf. Scott slugged a drive with immense power and control. The Tiger once more elected to go with an iron. Scott powered his second shot beyond the pin. Woods was well short of the green. Even after the years of crisis, the convulsions in his life and the disruptions brought by injury, it did seem like another small defeat among many.
Oliver Brown's Telegraph story was headlined, "Tiger Woods' refusal to gamble leaves him struggling to reel in leader Adam Scott."
He sticks almost slavishly to his strategy of conservatism at all costs, refusing to swap his long irons for the driver as he resisted flirtation with Lytham’s 206 bunkers, but the approach succeeded only in increasing the deficit to Scott, the more enterprising Australian.
Why did he not take a few gambles? Why would he not try to intimidate Scott with his power-hitting? The questions were left hanging in the air on Saturday night, answerable only by Woods’s apparent assumption that Scott, still a flaky performer in the type of stiff winds forecast on Sunday, could yet falter. For a man five shots off the pace, though, that seems a bold supposition.
Classic shot from Glyn Kirk of Getty Images who theoretically was in the worst possible spot to capture Tiger's 18th hole bunker hole-out, yet got the best image of Woods and the crowd.
Tiger Woods talked to a packed 2012 Open Championship media center audience and in between the questions from the local tourism board or the unanswerable, he offered some great stuff on Royal Lytham and St. Annes.
Woods noted that the rough is more difficult than he remembered it at Lytham, likely due to the prolific rain the area has seen. "In some places, it is almost unplayable,'' he said.
Nonetheless, Woods was thankful to see the course on a relatively nice day, with the sun shining and the wind blowing.
Yet The Guardiandescribed Woods as "shocked," the Daily Mail says Woods "fears" the hay, the BBC says he is "questioning" the tall stuff, the Mirror says he was less than "polite," while the Telegraph offered the more modest suggestion that Tiger is "keen to avoid" the rough.
A few of you emailed to ask if Greenbrier founder Jim Justice gets a break on the purported appearance fees he paid to lure Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson to the West Virginia resort (which looked incredible in the late evening light during Golf Channel's rain delaybonus coverage).
Mickelson several times this year has admitted to being unable to shake himself from a lethargic state on the course, which certainly seems to be reflected in his play. He was looking for answers Friday, too. For the second year in a row. “I don't get it,” Mickelson said. “I certainly struggled a little bit on the greens both years, but nothing that should have led to these scores.”
Mickelson three-putted his first hole from 15 feet, missed another short one later in his front nine, and never really recovered. He also absorbed a one-shot penalty early when he dropped his ball on his marker, dislodging the coin.
"It doesn't feel like the parts are that far off," he said, "but I'm not putting them together."
It didn't help that Mickelson had a one-shot penalty for a fluke incident where he dropped his marker and it hit his ball. Jonathan Wall with the details.
Despite a shaky start, Tiger got it going over his final nine holes, but missed birdie putts at Nos. 13 and 15 proved costly as he fired a 1-under 69 to miss the cut at the Greenbrier Classic by a single shot.
"I didn't quite have it," Woods said. "I drove it really good today and I just did not have the feel for the distances. The ball was just going forever. I know we're at altitude, but I just couldn't get the ball hit pin high no matter what I did, and subsequently, I made some bogeys."
He gets several tournament directors and agents to talk, and they are not pleased to see what's going on.
The tour uses a very narrow, if not convenient, definition of "appearance fee." If a player has deeper business dealings with a corporate entity beyond taking cash to play, then he's generally free to ink a personal-services deal for whatever dollar figure he can command. If this sounds mostly like semantics, well, the line forms here.
As one very high-profile international player put it on Tuesday, "This week marks a change. Appearance money [is being paid in the] U.S. but not in Europe."
After arriving Tuesday, Woods was not specifically asked if he was being compensated by Justice this week, though a local reporter did ask if Justice resorted to “pulling his arm” to get him there.
"What sold it to me was watching it on TV and seeing how players enjoyed it," Woods said unblinkingly.
Um, did he say "sold?"
Mickelson played at Greenbrier last year -- for two days. He missed the cut.
"I know for a fact that Phil got $1 million last year," one top-tier agent insisted, citing a figure that was echoed by two other tour-related sources.
"I have to deal with it in every single press conference," he said. "I have to answer it in post-round interviews—whether it's with your guys or in a live shot [on TV]. You do that for a couple of years, sometimes you guys can be a little annoying."
Rumors have also circulated that Turkish Airlines would serve as a sponsor for Woods himself, but Steinberg maintained that is premature.
“That’s in its very embryonic stages right now,” he said. “I think Turkish Airlines is a very substantial event sponsor. Have there been some discussions? Yes, but it’s in the early stages.”
Geoff Shackelford
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning Drive, is co-host of The Ringer's ShackHouse is the author of eleven books.
But Tiger's "start lines" are good, so we can all relax now.
