The Common Golfer

Tiger Woods hasn’t looked excellent over the past few weeks, because frankly – he hasn’t cared about those tournaments.  I understand that Tiger’s a fierce competitor, and he would like to win every tournament he enters.  But the fact is, the first two events of the FedEx Cup are meaningless when you’re #1 in the world.  If Tim Finchem didn’t practically demand that the tour’s marquee players attend all playoff events, you can almost guarantee Tiger wouldn’t have been playing in Boston last week.  And he definitely would have skipped round 1 at Liberty National in New Jersey.

This week, things are different.  Steve Stricker has continued to play lights out and has now displaced Tiger at #1 in the FedEx standings.  If Tiger wants a shot at the $10 million purse at The Tour Championship, he needs to play well at Cog Hill this week to ensure he stays in the top 5 of the standings.

Not only is the title of FedEx Champion something that belongs more than once on the resume of the greatest golfer of all time, but there is added incentive for Tiger.  Despite winning 5 times this year, he has not won a major.  Winning the FedEx would help ease the pain of a major-less year.  Sure, Stricker has looked great in the playoffs so far…but he’s been playing against an un-motivated Woods.  There is no doubt in my mind, that Woods will keep his foot on the gas this weekend and through the entire Tour Championship.  It wouldn’t surprise me to see Woods win by a landslide next week.

On Sunday, the top 10 players for both Presidents Cup teams were finalized.  Now all that remains are the two captains’ picks for each side.  The matches are just around the corner, from October 8-11 at Harding Park in San Francisco, California.  Captains Fred Couples and Greg Norman will announce their captains’ picks on September 8.

The American team players so far are:  Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Steve Stricker, Kenny Perry, Zach Johnson, Stewart Cink, Sean O’Hair, Jim Furyk, Anthony Kim and Justin Leonard.  The International team players so far are:  Geoff Ogilvy, Vijay Singh, Camilo Villegas, Retief Goosen, Ernie Els, Angel Cabrera, Mike Weir, Robert Allenby, Y.E. Yang and Tim Clark.

The American team players are determined by PGA Tour earnings over the past two years, with 2009 earnings worth double.  The International players are determined based on world ranking.  Couples has already said that Hunter Mahan will be one of his two picks.  Norman has made no indication as to who he may select.

I’m sure I hold a slight bias, just by being American, but it looks to me like the American team should be the heavy favorite in October.  Besides the obvious inclusion of Tiger Woods on the American team, Stricker, Johnson, and Perry have all been having great years.  When I look at the International players, there are a lot of big names on the team, but only a few of them have been playing consistently great golf this season.