Tiger riding momentum
T HIS WEEK’S PGA Championship at Bellerive will mark the 14th tournament Tiger Woods will have played this year. He has yet to win, and hasn’t done so since 2013.
Yet, the comeback of Woods, a polarizing figure with his share of detractors, cannot be understated considering how low he had plummeted — on and off the golf course.
In November, Woods was ranked 1,199th in the Official World Golf Rankings. Two weeks ago, he held the lead at the British Open at Carnoustie with eight holes to play in the final round before finishing in a tie for sixth.
Woods ascended 1,149 spots from November to the close of Carnoustie to get to 50th in the world and qualify for this weekend’s WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, a tournament he has won eight times in his career and a tournament that is being played for the last time at Firestone Country Club (the event is being moved to Memphis in 2019).
Woods took a step back Saturday with a 3-over performance that dropped him into a tie for 28th going into the final round of the Bridgestone.
“That was a goal of mine,” Woods said of reaching No. 50 to qualify for Bridgestone. “I was ranked pretty far (No. 1,199) in the world there in December. Within a year to get to 50 it’s quite an accomplishment.”
Woods’ last victory came at the 2013 WGC-Bridgestone at Firestone. He already has qualified for the first two FedExCup events — the upcoming Northern Trust at Ridgewood (N.J.) Country Club and the Dell Technologies Championship.
Other than winning for the first time in five years, Woods’ next accomplishment is securing a playing spot on the Ryder Cup team that will take on the Europeans the last week of September in France. He’s already a vice captain, but playing on that team is what’s driving him.
When asked last week at Firestone how, as a vice captain, he would assess himself as a potential Ryder Cup captain’s pick, Woods said with the tone of a player playing with confidence: “What would be the word? ‘Trending.’ ’’
Woods held the No. 1 world ranking for a record 683 total weeks, including 281 in a row — a span of more than five full years. He knows how to do this — at least on muscle memory.
As Woods has pieced together his season, with progression and regression, he has started to get those familiar feelings. The second-place finish at the Valspar Championship in March was massive for him, as was the tie for fifth the following week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
But perhaps nothing has ignited Woods’ belief that he can still do this more than his run at the British Open last month — despite falling short and being outplayed on the back nine by Francesco Molinari.
“I went from just hoping to being able to play on tour to now I feel like I can play on tour and can certainly win again,” Woods said. “I certainly can win again. I’ve had an opportunity to win a couple times this year. My game has gotten better and good enough where I feel like I can win again out here.”
Woods’ ascent has been steady, if not remarkable — despite the fact that he hasn’t won yet.
His tie for ninth at the 18-player Hero World Challenge in December at the Bahamas, where he beat Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas and Brooks Koepka, among others, in his first tournament since 2015, bumped Woods to 656th in the world.
His tie for 23rd at the Farmers Insurance Open, his first official PGA Tour event, moved Woods to 539th. His 12th-place finish at the Honda Classic moved him to 389th. The tie for second at the Valspar moved him to 149th and the tie for fifth at the Arnold Palmer Invitational got him to 105th.
Woods entered the British Open ranked 67th in the world and his tie for sixth elevated him to 50th, just good enough to get into the WGC-Bridgestone. That’s an ascent of 1,149 spots in the world rankings in eight months. Woods’ peers have taken notice. “Is it quick?” Jason Day asked of Woods’ rapid ascent. “He’s won 79 times, right? You lose the touch of it, but it’s in there somewhere. Once you find the confidence, then he’s not too far away. He’s not too far away from going on a pretty big tear here.”