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Tiger's 'interesting' outlook for FedEx Cup playoffs

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Robert Lusetich

After more than 20 years of covering everything from election campaigns to Olympic Games, Robert Lusetich turned his focus to writing about his first love — golf. He is author of Unplayable: An Inside Account of Tiger's Most Tumultuous Season. MORE>>
Updated Aug 27, 2009 8:23 AM ET
     
 

Jersey City, N.J.

Tiger Woods likes to say he learns something new each time he wins and now he's learned a salient lesson from losing. Don't expect to see him playing two straight weeks going into a major again. "No doubt," Woods said Wednesday. That was the moral — though perhaps not the only one — the world No. 1 took from his inability to hold a 54-hole lead at a major for the first time in his career at the PGA Championship. Woods bounced back from missing the cut at the British Open by winning the final Buick Open in Michigan, then prevailed again the following week at Akron. But after building a four-shot lead midway through the year's final major, Woods was uncharacteristically flat on the weekend. He ultimately finished second, three strokes behind surprise winner Y.E. Yang of Korea. "That's the thing, (playing) three weeks is fine, but being in contention just about every day, it puts a toll on you," Woods said Wednesday. "It was a long three weeks." Perhaps not as long as the days since having his unblemished record — he had been 14-for-14 in converting third-round leads at majors — snapped. "That night was tough, no doubt," said Woods in something of an understatement. "I went home and took a few days off, away from golf. I was a little tired of it." There's something strangely comforting about Tiger Woods saying he'd grown tired of golf; like hearing that Michelangelo once got tired of making the world beautiful. Some like to think of Woods as a cyborg but, like the rest of us, he's afflicted by the human condition. It hurt him in a very deep place to lose that PGA. He's five majors away from reaching the holy grail, eclipsing Jack Nicklaus' record of 18, the only feat that's ever really meant anything to him.
In years past, Woods would have stayed away from the range longer, facing a long winter contemplating a major-less season — his first in five years — and dreaming longingly of a chance at redemption in the spring, amid azaleas, dogwoods and green jackets. But the PGA Tour — as adroit as any organization in the art of maximizing financial opportunities — has determined that Woods' season isn't yet over. So here we all are at the FedEx Cup playoffs, Tim Finchem's quixotic attempt to keep people interested in golf as football begins and baseball moves into the postseason. Woods doesn't have much fondness for the New York area — aside from his 2002 U.S. Open victory at Bethpage, it hasn't been a happy hunting ground — or this event, where he's never even had a Top 10. It used to be played on a course, Westchester, that he didn't like but now it's been moved to another course he doesn't like. "It's interesting," Woods said of Liberty National. Interesting in a good way? "It's interesting." A veteran caddie told me he's never heard "so much bitching about a course." "To call it a goat track is being diplomatic," said another caddie. They might want to hold their tongues considering that people linked with the Gambinos used to own some of the property on which Liberty National was built. One thing, however, is clear: we are here this week because the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline provide the background.
"I went home and took a few days off, away from golf. I was a little tired of it."
— Tiger Woods, on what he did after the PGA
Why Woods is here is another matter. He leads the FedEx Cup points race but considering majors are worth 600 points and this event nets 2,500 to the winner — therefore, you could win the Grand Slam and ludicrously have fewer points than the winner of the Barclays — he couldn't afford not to come. As Phil Mickelson said Wednesday when he was asked what winning the FedEx Cup would mean, "Ten million." As in, dead presidents. I'm not sure money alone floats Woods' boat but he does value being named Player of the Year by his peers and, with five wins already, a good showing in the four playoffs events assures him of a 10th award — one for the other thumb. "Playing well at the end of the year in the big events, that can swing votes, because usually guys remember what you've done later in the year," Woods said. What he's not overly happy about is the way the playoffs have gotten so much weighting in terms of getting into the Tour's Super Bowl, the Tour Championship, held in Atlanta next month. "It's just interesting," he said, using that code word again. "You keep resetting (the structure). The entire year, you work hard, say you won 25 tournaments this year, it doesn't really matter. You come here, you don't play well, you're not getting into the Tour Championship. "You want to put more weight at the end of the season, which they are trying to do, trying to make it a little more interesting (but) they have changed the system twice and now it's the third time changing. Hopefully, this will work. We'll see what happens." Hardly a ringing endorsement. Woods also had the chance Wednesday to renew acquaintances with Yang, his slayer in Minnesota, who was back at work after a hectic week of celebration. I asked Yang if he felt, in any way, the bad guy in ending one of the great streaks in sports and, surprisingly, he said he did. "In some ways you could say I was the party pooper to Tiger's long streak," Yang said through an interpreter. "As a golf fan, I guess I am the bad guy a bit and there is a little bit of I guess a sorry feeling ... but if I had to do it again, I would still try and win." And what was it like to run into Woods again? "Today before the pro-am, I just passed by him," he said. "We never made eye contact. That was it. No comment whatsoever." Given the circumstances, maybe there wasn't much either of them could say.

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