Woods: Can anyone beat him at Firestone?
IN: News | US PGA | Bridgestone Invitational (2006) | Preview | by Bruce Young | 23 Aug 2006
It's still the big time this week as far as the word of professional golf is concerned when many of the leading protagonists from last week's PGA Championship once again go at it at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational.
The tournament brings together the latest Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup teams, the top fifty from the world rankings as at August 14th and 21st, the winners of tournaments from the six tours of the world, providing they carried a certain field strength, and winners of certain events on the Asian, Australasian, South African and Japan Golf Tours.
What this means is that a field of 78 will tee it up at the South Course at the Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio for a purse of US$7.5 million. The course has played host to a series of world class events over a long period but became the host for this particular event when the World Golf Championship events were introduced in 1999.
The South Course at Firestone Country Club is one of the famed courses in the US and underwent changes in 2001 and 2002 after originally being designed by Bert Way in 1929 and redesigned by Robert Trent Jones Senior in 1960. It now measures 7,360 yards.
By all accounts from those who have already played it this week, the golf course is in absolutely immaculate condition. Narrow, cambered fairways, thick rough and fast greens will combine to test this high quality field. The winning score in recent years has varied between the 268 of Tiger Woods in 2001 to the five under total of 275 by Woods again in 2005.
Woods has dominated this event, winning it four times and finishing runner up once in the last seven years and given the manner in which he dominated last week's PGA Championship the question is how are they going to beat him?
While there is little doubt of Woods' dominance of the betting markets leading into the event there are many players who could well challenge for the runner up position if not the title. Phil Mickelson has won around Firestone and been runner up three times previously but not since 1999. His last few weeks have hardly given a lot of confidence in his capacity to beat Woods or the rest of the field for that matter.
If anything Jim Furyk was a disappointment last week but he had been playing well enough prior for him to be a consideration again this week. He finished runner up at Firestone in 2001 after a playoff loss to Woods.
Vijay Singh missed the cut by one at the PGA Championship but he did finish third in this event last year and has often played well despite not winning. He could well bounce back this week.
Luke Donald will be better for the experience last week after struggling in the final round when paired against the rampant Woods. His third place at Medinah was hardly a bad week however. His accurate game should work in his favour again this week. He was 6th in 2005, four shots behind Woods.
Plenty of others have a great chance to figure in the finish if not necessarily winning chances. Ogilvy, Scott and Garcia are all playing well enough at present and Els and Goosen are not too far away from improved form.
One player who, although not exactly on top of his game right now, could do well is Jose Maria Olazabal. Olazabal seems to thrive at Firestone having won there twice. His winning margin of twelve shots in 1990 was nothing short of sublime and he has regularly played well since, including when winning 1994. It would take a turnaround of current form but Firestone might just do it to him,
There are plenty of Australasians in the field this week apart from those mentioned earlier. Robert Allenby, Stuart Appleby, Rod Pampling, Michael Campbell, Nick O'Hern, Peter Lonard, Aaron Baddeley, Mark Hensby and Richard Green will all line up for a piece of the big prizemoney on offer.
Photo - Anthony Powter
