It's Tiger's Last Chance For a Win This Year

Starting with a great collection of the top players in the world, this weekend's HSBC tournament in China will have everybody who's somebody, including newly minted World's #1 Lee Westwood,  PGA Champion Martin Kaymer, wunderkind Matteo Manassero, who just the youngest player to capture a PGA European Tour title, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els and a number of other great players will be teeing it up in an area of the world seeing explosive growth in golf's popularity. 

And one certain Tiger Woods will be there too.

Yesterday was the press's first chance to quiz Woods on his feelings about losing the World Golf #1 ranking, and Tiger, as always, was dry and matter of fact in his remarks to the reporters, using his usual tightfisted economy of words. 

You have to win to be #1, he said, and he hasn't won.  Fair enough.  He's right about that, and even though some might say Westwood backed into the top ranking, Tiger simply pointed out the obvious. "I haven't won an event in about a year," he said. "'I've gone through periods like this before in the past. In order to become No. 1 in the world, I've won golf tournaments. It's something I haven't done, and it's a matter of going out there and competing and winning."

These days, it seems like a rare sighting to see Tiger Woods in the field of a tournament, much less winning one.  It seems like centuries ago when Woods was hobbling down the fairways at Torrey Pines, playing invincibly in grim determination and obvious pain.  First he had his knee surgery, followed his marital scandal and finally more swing surgery to fix his ailing golf game.  When he has played, he seems like he is an after-thought, and has only put a few solid rounds here and there together, but nothing resembling what it would take to beat a field of the world's top players.

Woods later said that he came to China to win.  He always says that, it's almost a fill-in-the-blank statement for him.  Thing is, Tiger didn't sound very convincing, or perhaps he simply was not being brash about his chances, which of course he likes.  "I come to the event to win the event," Woods said in a dry monotone.  Then again, he's always said that, so it's really a Tiger cliche these days.  But then again, of course he should like his own chances.  What top player goes to a tournament to lose?  Pundits, of course, may disagree with Woods' self-assessment.

Naturally, some of those pundits had to rush to print or air with the "last chance" angle, and of course that it's that the disgraced champion has not only fallen from grace at home he's also fallen from grace from the Golf Gods too.  There's a battle to be the new king of the game, and it's not one that this weekend will ultimately settle.  More than likely, it will take a dominant run by one of the players ranked in the top four or five to feel secure on the throne.  Sounds like some great tournaments are on the horizon.

Woods, as ever, dryly put that into perspective too. "It's exciting, I'm sure, for the public," he said. "As far as the players are concerned, I think that everyone has the same focus, and that's to win golf tournaments."