On Sunday, Tiger Woods continued his impressively mounting comeback tour, winning the prestigious Players Championship tournament at TPC Sawgrass in Jacksonville. Winning by a final count of two strokes, Tiger won a tournament for the 54th time after having at least a share of the three-round lead, a testament to his legendary red-and-black Sunday attire.
In a sense, it was a truly typical Tiger win. He held good position after the first round, taking advantage of pristine conditions to shoot a five under 67 on day one, trailing leader Roberto Castro by four strokes. Castro’s opening day 63 was figured to be unsustainable, a prediction that proved true as he shot four over par for the remainder of the tournament.
Day two saw Sergio Garcia jump up the leaderboard, a place where he would remain with Tiger until he reached the 17 hole on Sunday, where he fell apart as has become custom, crumbling into a quadruple bogey, which he then followed up with a double bogey on 18. Sadly, those two holes dropped him to eighth in the tournament, a fall worth somewhere in the vicinity of $500,000.
So, with Garcia falling apart and three relative unknowns following behind in the wings, the Players was all Tiger’s for the taking, which he took in typical fashion, rallying back from a double bogey on 14 that dropped him into a share for the lead. His feel for the moment and experience were clearly on display as he rallied and held position, rather than dropping shots as his more inexperienced competitors did on their final rounds.
While it is not a major championship, of which Tiger has won 14, trailing just the legendary Jack Nicklaus who recorded 18 wins at such events, the tournament does feature most of the best players in the world. This year’s event featured the likes of Rory McIlroy, Lee Westwood, The Master’s winner Adam Scott and Phil Mickelson.
The win gave Tiger 600 FedEx Cup points, bringing his year to date total to 2,340. His total is 866 points higher than second placeholder Brandt Snedeker.
Woods’ win also earned him an impressive $1,710,000. On the year, Tiger is averaging almost $600,000 per tournament played in purse winnings alone, a figure that does not account for his massive sponsorship totals.
In all, it has been a tremendous year for the once fallen Tiger, who in addition to his return to golf glory, has began dating Colorado and Olympic hero Lindsay Vonn. This development came shortly after finally regaining his place atop the Official World Golf Rankings, a position he once held for a record 264 weeks.
