The PGA Tour winds its way to San Diego this week for the Buick
Invitational, the fourth stop on the 2007 circuit.
Fourth stop,
yes, but it's really like Opening Day.
The season
really begins this week, because Tiger Woods tees it up for the first time. And even
though there are hundreds of great players on the Tour and dozens of great stories every
week, there's nothing quite like an event with Tiger in the lineup.
The tour has
him for the first time in nearly four months, dating back to his eight-shot victory at the
American Express Championship in London last November. Woods has played in Asia, at the
PGA Grand Slam of Golf exhibition in Hawaii, and his own Target World Challenge to wrap up
golf's silly season.
But his winning streak on the PGA Tour is still alive. He will be going for his seventh
straight tour victory at the Buick, where he is the two-time defending champion and has
never finished out of the top 10.
When the tour shrunk its schedule and instituted the FedEx Cup points race, the goal was
to have the world's best players play together more often. We haven't seen the effect of
that yet, with Woods skipping the first three events, including what should be a
prestigious season-opening Mercedes, and Phil Mickelson, second in player profile, not
making an appearance until last week at the Bob Hope.
Both stars
are playing this week, but only three of the top 10 in the world are at Torrey Pines
because Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, Sergio Garcia and Paul Casey are all at the Qatar
Masters on the European Tour.
Woods is
practically even money (+$105) on the board at WagerWeb.com, and after Mickelson (+1000)
and Vijay Singh (+1100), who won the Mercedes, everyone in the field has to be considered
a long shot at 30 to 1 or more. We?ll take the same approach as we did last year, when
Tiger was winning every week, and continue to assume he?ll win again.
He is too
tough to bet against, isn't he?
Others to
take a flier on this week are:
Justin Rose
(+3300): The young Brit is finally coming into his own and really should have won last
week at the Hope, but he got blown away -- literally -- in the final round, shooting 76 in
heavy winds to lose his third-round lead. Rose has his game in order and is nearing the
level everyone expected from him several years ago when he contended at the British Open
as a teenager. He has a nice game, and his confidence level is high. No one will take last
week's blowout as anything that matters.
Mickelson: He
always plays well at Torrey Pines, so it'll be interesting to see how he plays this week.
He has been a non-factor since blowing the U.S. Open last summer, but maybe some friendly
surroundings will help. He didn't score well at the Hope, but he seems ready. "The
bright thing was that I drove the ball very well the last three days, and I was very
pleased about it," he said, alluding to his problems off the tee late last year.
"This isn't really a barometer to see where your game is, so I won't really know
until [Torrey Pines]."
Charley
Hoffman (+6000): Never heard of him until last week? Maybe so, but that's been something
of a trend the past few years on the Tour. Get hot, stay hot isn't a bad thing.
EUROPEAN TOUR
The 10th
anniversary of the Qatar Masters gets to celebrate its best field ever as the European
Tour kicks off its second desert event of the season.
The field is
loaded with great players, including Goosen, Els, Garcia, Chris DiMarco, Casey and Michael
Campbell.
Henrik
Stenson, the Ryder Cup hero, helped earn his spot by winning at Qatar last year. The 2006
season was his best ever, and look for him to continue to be a factor this year. He is
listed at +1000 on WagerWeb.com in Qatar, the second favorite to Els (+750).
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