PGA Tour notebook: Tiger Woods anticipates a different Torrey Pines for the 2008 U.S. Open

From WorldGolf.com News Services

Barring injury or illness, Tiger Woods was already the overwhelming favorite to win this summer's U.S. Open at Torrey Pines.

Woods' confidence level about winning the year's second major certainly wasn't damaged by his performance last week in La Jolla, Calif., which will host the U.S. Open in June. Playing in his first PGA Tour event of the year, Woods shot 19-under-par 269 to win the Buick Open by eight strokes.

The victory was the fourth in a row for Woods at Torrey Pines. He's now won six times as a professional on the San Diego-area course.

Woods told reporters after winning the Buick that his performance last weekend will mean little once the USGA sets up the Torrey Pines South Course for the U.S. Open, however.

"It's totally different clubs off tees," Woods said. "Joe (Durant) and I were talking about (hitting) off No. 4: How are you going to keep that ball in the fairway? We hit 3-woods and drivers. During the Open you could see guys hitting irons down there and still have 7-iron to the green. Two totally different sites."

Woods, who grew up about a 90-minute drive from Torrey Pines, admits that the course seems to "fit his eye." He said, however, that the only possible advantage he'll have in the U.S. Open is perhaps a better knowledge of the greens, although they'll be rolling much faster.

Woods said he didn't even want to try and guess what the winning score in the U.S. Open might be.

"To be honest with you, I don't know how they're going to set it up," said Woods, who is scheduled to play this week in the Dubai Desert Classic. "I know these are about the lines, the fairway widths, but as far as the rough and how they're going to have it and the pin locations and the greens and how fast and how firm they're going to have them, if we get wind like this every day, no one is breaking par. But (if) you get calm days, you can see guys shooting under par."

Drug testing dread?

When it was announced last November that drug testing was coming to golf, few players had much to say. That changed last week prior to the Buick Invitational after players attended a mandatory meeting to learn more about the PGA Tour's anti-doping policy.

Frank Lickliter was one player who was particularly outspoken in his disgust after learning that players could be tested at any time, regardless of where they may be, including their own homes.

"He's going to have a hard time getting off my property without a bullet in his (butt)," Lickliter told the Associated Press in regard to a drug official potentially coming to his house.

PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem said during a press conference last week that everyone obviously has a lot to learn about the process. Testing is scheduled to begin July 8.

"It's a lot of information," Finchem told reporters. "We're just getting started. We anticipated, I think correctly, that there is a lot to it and it is new in our sport. And because as we've studied what's happened in other sports, one of our major objectives here is not to have the pitfalls and the problems that some of the other sports have had.

"So to do that, we felt strongly that the first order of business was to get a good strong team put together. We think we've got a good strong team, but equally important was to allow ourselves some time to get players fully involved in what needs to happen."

PGA Tour's cut policy to be reviewed

A new cut rule put in place for this season that has caused uproar in the first month of the PGA Tour season will be reviewed.

The new policy allows for the top 70 players and ties to make the cut, which is the way it has been on the PGA Tour since 1969. If the number results in more than 78 players, however, the 60 golfers nearest to the cut number get to play the weekend, while the remaining players receive last-place money and are eliminated from the tournament.

A total of 18 players at the Sony Open and 19 players at the Buick Invitational were knocked out of weekend play by the new rule. Finchem told the AP that he's received enough complaints to call a meeting of the Player Advisory Council at next month's Northern Trust Open to discuss the issue.

The Barclays moving from Westchester

The PGA Tour has announced that the Barclays — the first of four events in the PGA Tour's four-tournament FedEx Cup playoffs — will move from Westchester Country Club to Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, N.J., for this year's event to be played Aug. 21-24.

"As we have said before, we believe it is in the best interest of The Barclays to rotate among various venues in the New York area, as do other significant events," Finchem said in a press release. "We look forward to beginning that rotation with Ridgewood in 2008 and a return to Westchester, which has been a terrific host for PGA Tour events since 1967, for at least one more play by 2012."

The 2009 Barclays will be held at Liberty National in Jersey City, N.J. The rotation for the tournament after that has yet to be announced.

Tour talk

• Despite missing the cut in last week's Buick Invitational, Sony Open winner K.J. Choi continues to lead the FedEx Cup standings with 4,681 points. Daniel Chopra is second (4,633), Rory Sabbatini is third (4,550), D.J. Trahan is fourth (4,546) and Woods is fifth (4,500).

• After struggling through much of 2007, Justin Leonard has quietly gotten his game back on track. The former British Open champion was fifth at last week's Buick Invitational, capturing his third consecutive top-10 performance of the year. Going back to last year, Leonard has finished in the top 10 in six of his last seven tournaments.

• Fred Couples' tie forth eighth place in the Buick Open marked his first top-10 finish in a PGA Tour event since the Masters in 2006 when he tied for third. Couples has finished in the top 10 in five of his 19 starts at Torrey Pines.

January 30, 2008