Woods is No. 2 and trying harder
LOS ANGELES – For the first time since 1997, Tiger Woods will not end the year ranked No. 1, but Woods has cooked up a plan to change that next year:
“Win golf tournaments.”
He did that only once all year on the PGA Tour, in the match-play event at La Costa in February. And with the 2005 season just around the corner, Woods is chasing someone else for the top ranking, looking at unsatisfying results and trying to correct inconsistent play that invited critical scrutiny.
Now, Woods can say the swing changes he has been working on seem to be paying off, pointing to his eight-shot victory last month in Japan.
Woods, who at various times struggled off the tee and on the greens, said his confidence was high, but admitted that he still had an occasional swing thought.
“As long as I don’t have a laundry list of things to go through,” he said.
If it has been sort of a down year for Woods, at least there isn’t much more left of it.
He is the host of the $5.25 million Target World Challenge that begins Thursday at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, where he has one last chance to run up against Vijay Singh, who won nine times, including the PGA Championship, and replaced Woods as the No. 1 player in the world.
Singh set a record, earning $10.91 million in 29 events. Woods, the leading money winner the previous four years, fell to fourth with $5.36 million in 19 tournaments.
Singh’s scoring average of 68.84 also led the PGA Tour. Woods, who had led the previous five years, was third at 69.04. If that weren’t enough, Singh was an overwhelming choice as player of the year, an award that Woods had won every year since 1999.
Singh, who will turn 42 in February, has promised to work just as hard. “Sooner or later, I’m going to get tired and guys are going to catch me,” he said. “So I want to stay there. I want to keep ahead of the pack as long as possible and that’s the battle I’m going to face next year and maybe a few more years to come.”
For a change, Woods is in the pack, instead of leading it. Weary of defending his swing changes at each tournament, he said his job is simple.
“I’m ranked No. 2 and he’s No. 1, so all of us who are behind him are doing the hunting,” Woods said. “That’s just the way it is. The key to it is, how do you get there? How do you get to be No. 1 in the world? You have to win golf tournaments and there’s no one better at it in the last two years than Vijay.
“All you do is just try and win tournaments. When (David) Duval was No. 1 in the world, how did he go to that point? Well, he won golf tournaments.
“You can’t become No. 1 in the world by not winning. That’s how I got there. I got there a few times, and hopefully I can do that again.”
Woods had 14 top-10 finishes this year and said his results were fairly consistent, beginning with his tie for third at the Wachovia in May. In 11 PGA Tour events afterward, he had nine top 10s and was second three times.
With swing coach Hank Haney’s help, Woods said he was gaining confidence in his swing, especially on the tee, where he ranked 182nd on the tour in driving accuracy.
“It’s coming together,” he said. “Driving is the last thing to come around.”
Woods said he started changing his swing last spring, realizing something had to be done after he’d won at La Costa.
“But I won because I putted great,” he said. “My iron play was not what it normally is and I just made everything. Even though I won the tournament, I knew that wasn’t going to do it for the rest of the year, so I had to start changing a few things.”
Even while he was winning seven of 11 majors, ending at the 2002 U.S. Open, Woods said, he knew it wouldn’t go on forever. Neither, he added, would his current streak of majors without a victory, which has reached 10.
“Unfortunately, you go through those times,” he said. “You don’t ever want to go through them, trust me, it doesn’t feel good, but it’s just part of playing sports.”