Year After a Scandal, Woods Will Test His Progress at the Site of a Triumph
MARANA, Ariz. — The first clue was the view. Pounding golf balls off the pristine turf on the range at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club at Dove Mountain Tuesday was one great ball striker after another: Robert Allenby of Australia, Rory McIlroy from Northern Ireland, the Colombian Camilo Villegas, the teenage sensation Ryo Ishikawa of Japan and, way on the far end, in a form-fitting golf shirt and wraparound shades, Tiger Woods.
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It is not merely the presence of Woods at this World Golf Championship event, returning to the desert after a two-year absence, that makes this week special. Every one of the top 50 golfers in the world, and 62 of the top 64, are here in the Oro Valley in the shadow of Dove Mountain for the W.G.C.-Accenture Match Play Championship.
For Woods, being here is the latest signpost on a journey back. One year ago this week, he was appearing on live television to admit to multiple extramarital affairs, taking the blame for the fallout that led to the loss of his marriage and a number of his key sponsors, including Accenture.
On Tuesday, he was hitting balls into a light wind, painting 3-wood shots high and low against the cloudless desert sky and hoping, he said, to return to contention soon, starting with his opening match against Thomas Bjorn of Denmark.
“Got to take it one match at a time,” said Woods, whose 32-7 individual match record is the best in this event. “One opponent at a time. I’ve got Thomas tomorrow. Looking forward to it. He won a tournament, what, three weeks ago? He is obviously playing better.”
So is Woods. At his last outing in Dubai two weeks ago, he outperformed both golfers above him in the World Golf Rankings — No. 1 Lee Westwood and No. 2 Martin Kaymer — but failed to turn a one-stroke deficit going into Sunday into his first victory since November 2009.
Form, whether current or past, is not always the best predictor of how a player will perform in match play. The vagaries of constant pressure and sudden death are what set this event apart. On Wednesday, 32 of the 64 golfers in the field will be gone after the first day in the only match play event of this magnitude on the schedule in the United States this year.
The likelihood that at least some of the higher seeds will meet their match early in the event is the double-edged sword to match play. On a Friday in 1999, on the eve of the quarterfinals, all but one of the top seeds was eliminated.
When the possibility was raised to Ian Poulter, the defending Accenture champion, that his 7:42 a.m. first-off-the-tee time against Stewart Cink could result in his being the shortest-lived defending champion of the year, he had a typically droll reply.
“Could be, could be on an airplane by midafternoon, I guess,” he said. “I hadn’t really thought about that until you just mentioned it, but thanks, well done. I’d rather be having a nice salmon for a starter and filet steak for dinner tomorrow night.”
Poulter’s preference, of course, would be for the meal to be served in his suite at the Ritz rather than on a flight back to his Florida home.
But his chances of working through the draw the way he did last year, which culminated with a 4-and-2 victory over Paul Casey in an all-England final, are not good. To do so he will first have to get past Cink, the 2008 finalist whose form is on an uptick. Phil Mickelson, who meets Brendan Jones in the first round, also is on Poulter’s side of the draw. So is Westwood, who faces Henrik Stenson.
“There are no easy games,” Westwood said when asked about Stenson, an alternate who got in the field when Japan’s Toru Taniguchi, the No. 64 player in the rankings, withdrew with a shoulder injury. “Everybody expects the top 64 is capable of shooting 65, 64. You get lucky in this format, but you also know you have to play well.”
Westwood has not yet run into any luck in this event. In 10 prior appearances, he has yet to advance past the second round.
“Yeah, I’m wondering what Friday looks like in this tournament,” he said.
After two years away, Woods will be trying to remember what it was like to get to the finals and drub Cink, 8-and-7, in 2008, which seems like a long time ago.
“Game is progressing, no doubt,” Woods said. “Had to work on a few things that we found were not right at Dubai, which was good. It feels like we’re heading in the right direction. Just have to work on it and solidify it.”
