Sport
Tiger Woods: The recovery continues
He might not be done with the wind just yet.
The forecast is for the famous Santa Ana wind to rip through Sherwood Country Club at least for the first few days, which figures to make it more difficult than the Australian courses because of the trees and foothills in Conejo Valley that make it hard to gauge just which way it’s blowing.
The 18-man field is not quite as strong as it has been in years past because of the crowded global schedule. McDowell chose not to defend his title. He was at the World Cup in China last week, and wraps up his European Tour season in Dubai next week. Instead of a journey around the world, he chose to play in South Africa this week in the Nedbank Challenge.
Only PGA Tour members are at Sherwood this year, though it’s a solid cast, 11 of them were at the Presidents Cup, while Gary Woodland returns from China where he and Matt Kuchar gave the United States its first World Cup title in 11 years.
Woods nearly didn’t make it into the field. Because the Chevron World Challenge now offers world ranking points, the two exemptions had to be inside the top 50 in the world when qualifying ended in September. That was during the FedEx Cup playoffs, Woods was ineligible for those, and he was No. 49 at the cutoff date.
Now that he’s here, it’s another chance for him to measure his progress.
Woods will play the first round with Steve Stricker, one of his close friends on tour and regular partner. They played practice rounds at Royal Melbourne and a foursomes match on the first day. Woods suffered his worst loss ever in match play when Adam Scott and K.J. Choi beat them, 7 and 6.
Stricker was still rusty from having not competed in nearly two months, but he liked what he saw from his partner.
