By Jason Lloyd, Akron Beacon Journal –
AKRON, Ohio — When he arrived at Firestone last year for the Bridgestone Invitational, Tiger Woods’ golf game — much like his health — was in shambles. He had taken three months off to heal injuries, his Thursday round here was his first time walking 18 holes in months, and the rust translated into irrelevance on Sunday and a 37th-place finish.
He returns this week with the opportunity to reclaim the world’s No. 1 ranking. He has three victories this season and nearly snapped his majors drought two weeks ago at the British Open before finishing in a tie for third.
“Overall (I) feel infinitely better than what I did physically last year,” Woods said Wednesday before his practice round. “I feel very comfortable where I am because everything is progressing. This year I’ve taken the steps and am headed in the right direction and shot better scores and been more consistent. When you make changes like I’ve made in my game, it takes a little bit of time and things are starting to click now.”
Despite last year’s collapse, Woods has won seven of the past 13 Bridgestone titles. He annually calls this one of his favorite courses and it’s easy to see why.
He’ll be paired for the first two rounds this week with relative unknown Branden Grace of South Africa. Like Woods, Grace has three victories this year (all on the European Tour). He has one top-25 finish in four PGA Tour events.
“It’s unreal. He’s my idol,” Grace said. “He’s been my role model since I started playing golf. (Thursday) is a little bit of a dream come true.”
Woods on Wednesday defended his conservative approach to the British Open, when he rarely used driver to avoid more than 200 bunkers at Lytham and still was within range of his 15th major when Sunday began. Woods started his final round believing he needed to shoot 2 under to force a playoff and 3 under to win the tournament outright. Any realistic chance of that disintegrated in a greenside bunker on No. 6, when Woods couldn’t get out on his first attempt. He needed three shots to get out, then three-putted for triple bogey. He wasn’t really a serious threat the rest of the day.
“I missed it by a yard, and that one yard cost me three shots on the hole,” Woods said Wednesday. “Still was right there.”
He remains right there, too. He has charged to second in the world rankings thanks in part to his three tour victories. He would probably need a victory Sunday to have a chance at the top spot, depending on how Luke Donald and others finish.
Donald has held the top spot the majority of the weeks since Woods’ departure about 18 months ago. He has grown accustomed to fending off other relative youngsters such as Lee Westwood and Rory McIlroy, but he enters this week with Woods staring him down and charging hard again.
“I don’t see any difference,” Donald said. “I’m certainly very proud of my No. 1 ranking and how long I’ve kept it. That shows how consistent I’ve been over the last couple years. If I keep doing what I know I can do, winning more tournaments and hopefully winning majors, then hopefully I can stay there.”
A victory here Sunday, or more importantly a victory next week in the PGA Championship at Kiawah, would strengthen Woods’ grip on a possible Player of the Year award.
Asked Wednesday whom he would vote for, a player with three victories or fewer victories and a major, Woods never hesitated.
“It’s not over yet,” he said.
