Tiger Woods is on a roll again. He’s back in the spotlight again and back to championship form again just in time for his 300th PGA tournament appearance at the Players Championship in Jacksonville where he has not had a win since 2001.
Tiger made headlines just before the tourney by showing up at a high fashion affair in New York with Olympic Skiing Champion Lindsey Vonn. Both were dressed to the nines and out on the town making a sort of debut in public although the pair has been in the gossip columns of late. Reportedly, Woods tripped and fell down when trying to make a cool exit and Lindsey had to help him up, perhaps too much champagne.
Anyway, Tiger made it to the tee at the Players on time and proceeded to take care of business. It doesn’t seem like so long ago that we were watching a young Woods slipping into his first green jacket back in 1997 on his way to one of the most successful careers in the history of sports.
Woods continues to rewrite the record books on the PGA tour. At this point, he has eight more wins through 299 starts on the PGA Tour than anyone else in history has had through 300.
The Tiger is coming off a brilliant win at Bay Hill where he took his 77th PGA Tour victory and he is hot on the trail of the great Sam Snead for total victories. However, Woods did not have a very good showing at the recent Masters Tournament and ended up in a tie for fourth after a controversial penalty call which wound up costing him 2 stokes and almost got him kicked out of the Masters for making an error on his scorecard.
The Players Tournament, played on a golf course by the sea called “SawGrass”, is known to be one of the most challenging courses on the PGA circuit. Tiger says about the links in Ponte Vedra Beach, “If you’re not playing well, you’re going to get exposed.”
The first day of play at SawGrass ended with Roberto Castro in the club house with a 63 the lead. Tiger Woods was way back in the pack. By mid-afternoon on Friday Castro was at -3 and Woods had blazed his way through the day coming in one shot behind tourney leader Sergio Garcia with a 10 under.
Oh what a difference a day makes!
