Albany, Bahamas …..
A rejuvenated Tiger Woods will head into the New Year excited knowing he’s won six of his 18 Major Championship titles on three of the four 2019 host venues.
Woods has won four times at Augusta National (1997, 2001-02, 2005), stormed to a remarkable 15-stroke success at the 2000 U.S Open and where the event returns in June while he captured an eighth Major in winning the 2002 PGA Championship at Bethpage Page on New York’s Long Island and where the event is returning in May.
And clearly whetting Woods’ appetite is having gone so close to victory this past year in both the Open Championship at Carnoustie in Scotland and pushed eventual champion, Brooks Koepka all the way before ending runner-up in the PGA Championship in St. Louis.
Tiger Woods looks forward to 2019 and teeing-up on three Major venues where he’s one six of 18 Majors (Photo – @tourmiss)
“What I did in the last two major championships, I gave myself a chance to win both of them and I was right there,” he said.
“That’s ultimately what we want to have happen. Now it’s about trying to get everything to peak together like I did for those two weeks to do it again four more times. That’s the trick.
“As you look at anyone who’s ever played this game, that is the most difficult thing to do in this game.
“That’s why most people haven’t won a lot of major championships, because it’s so hard to do.
“Fortunately, I was able to do it 14 times and hopefully more in the future.”
It also not just Majors where Woods will look to make his mark in 2019 but he admits he’s determined to play his way into his USA Captained Presidents Cup Team and tee-up at Royal Melbourne later next year as a playing captain.
If so, Woods would become the first ‘playing’ captain since the inaugural event in 1994 when fellow American Hale Irwin captained the victorious USA side.
“Yes, I would like to captain the side and there has been that precedent already been set, 1994 when Hale Irwin was captain,” said Woods.
“If, I remember correctly, the Presidents Cup, that team started four to six months prior to that date, but he already made the team on points. That’s very similar to what I would do. If I make the team on points, yes, I’ll play.
“Now, if I don’t make it on points, then it’s up to myself, my vice captains and the rest of the players who are already on the team, who is the best suited to play. If we find — if we think that it’s someone else, then I don’t play. It will be a team decision on who are the next four picks.”
And ahead of teeing-up in this week’s Hero World Challenge on the Albany course in the Bahamas Woods also indicated, and despite admitting both he and Mickelson did not play well, that he was happy with the ‘positive’ feedback he’s received since last Friday’s ‘The Match’ and his showdown against Phil Mickelson on a course in Las Vegas.
Mickelson won the encounter and a $9m winner-takes-all prize purse at the 22nd hole.
“I think we’ve got some positive feedback overall,” he said.
“There’s some things in which we can make it better for the viewer, but I think a lot of people turned in and tried — well, tried to watch and then ended up watching.
“So, overall the experience was positive. Obviously, there’s some things we can do as far as interaction and as far as play. I wish we both would have played better, but neither one of us putted well that day and there were some tough hole locations out there.
“So, maybe going forward, just don’t quite have the greens so fast or the pins so difficult, but also as short as the golf course was playing, we should have made at least seven, eight birdies a piece. We just did not.”
