McDowell outduels Woods in Chevron playoff

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. – Tiger Woods delivered a vintage moment, dropping an 8-iron from the sky on the final hole Sunday inside 3 feet for what looked to be a sure victory.

Just not this year.

The clutch shots and happy endings belonged to U.S. Open champion Graeme McDowell.

McDowell capped off his greatest season with the biggest comeback ever against Woods. He rallied from a four-shot deficit in the Chevron World Challenge, then upstaged Woods at his own tournament.

McDowell holed a 20-foot birdie putt to force a playoff, then beat Woods on the first extra hole with another birdie from a little bit longer.

“They’re the kind of putts that you make them, and you can’t really believe it afterwards,” McDowell said. “They were the stuff of dreams – 2010 has been the stuff of dreams. It’s been that kind of year.”

Woods might have known what to expect, considering how his year has gone.

Without a trophy for the first time since he can remember, Woods appeared ready to embark on a new chapter after a year of personal turmoil and shocking scores. A four-shot lead turned into a two-shot deficit. He rallied to tie McDowell, then watched the U.S. Open champion deliver the winning shots.

It was the first time Woods has lost a tournament when leading by at least three shots going into the final round.

And it was the first time anyone could recall Woods feeling good after a loss.

“It was a great week, even though I didn’t win,” Woods said. “I’m proud of today, even though I lost.”

Woods lost his big lead with a pair of three-putt bogeys, imploded with a double bogey on the par-5 13th to see his one-shot lead turn into a two-shot deficit, then got new life when McDowell made a couple of mistakes down the stretch.

McDowell won with two birdies on the 18th, but he might have won the tournament with a bogey. With a one-shot lead on the par-3 17th, he pulled his 8-iron into grass so high that he took a penalty drop on the 18th tee and pitched over the trees to 7 feet. Woods missed his birdie putt, and McDowell made his putt to stay even with Woods going to the final hole.

It was only the fourth time in 15 years that Woods has lost in a playoff.

But he had reason to look ahead to next year with growing confidence. After making a mess of his life off the course that ended in divorce, and rebuilding his swing for the fourth time, for the first time all year he looked like a No. 1 player.

In contention for the first time, however, old swing flaws crept into his game under the pressure of trying to win. Woods figured he did well to steady himself for the final few holes, and he did everything right except make a 15-foot putt to extend the playoff.

“The way I’m playing right now, yeah, I would like to continue playing,” Woods said. “Even though I lost and made countless mistakes in the middle part of the round, it said a lot for me to come back and put my swing back together again.”

It was great theater. And for the first time all year, Woods was part of the act.

“He used to appear invincible,” McDowell said. “Of course, he’s made himself appear more human in the last 12 months. But there’s something a bit special about his golf game, and I fully expect that mystique to return as the golf clubs start doing the talking again.”

McDowell closed with a 69, while Woods shot a 73 to match him at 16-under 272. They were four shots clear of Paul Casey, who had had a 69 to finish alone in third.

“We had a good battle out there,” Woods said.

Woods was shaky early on with the putter to quickly lose his four-shot cushion, but he didn’t fall out of the lead until the 13th.

He took his hand off the club on a poor tee shot that went into the left rough, forcing him to lay up. Then came another poor swing, again letting the club fall from his hands, as his wedge sailed over the green. He chipped through the green, chipped back 6 feet long and missed the putt to make double bogey.

McDowell reached the green in two for a birdie, which was a massive three-shot swing. It was the first time Woods trailed in the tournament since the 13th hole of the opening round, a stretch of 54 holes.

Woods probably should have lost the lead earlier.

He holed a tough, downhill putt from 8 feet for par on the sixth to stay one ahead. And on the par-3 eighth, after a flop shop from deep rough sailed 15 feet onto the fringe, Woods again made a key par putt to keep the lead.

Woods was grinding to keep his game together, which was not unusual considering it had been one year and 20 days since he last played in the final round of a tournament with the lead. He never got it back, thanks to the clutch putting from McDowell.

A year ago, McDowell was a last-minute alternate to this tournament when Woods’ personal life began to collapse. He finished second and earned enough world ranking points that he eventually got into the U.S. Open, which he won at Pebble Beach.

At a party Saturday night, McDowell asked tournament director Greg McLaughlin if he could at least try to win the tournament. Woods and a four-shot lead used to be a given. Upon seeing McLaughlin after winning, McDowell joking apologized.

It may have ruined a good story for Woods.

It capped a dream season for McDowell, who won $1.2 million and moved up to No. 7 in the world.

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Woods extends Chevron Challenge lead to 4

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. – Tiger Woods is starting to look like his old self at the Chevron World Challenge.

Woods got off to a blazing start Friday and a solid putting stroke enabled him to play bogey-free in the second round for a 6-under 66 that gave him a four-shot lead going into the weekend of his final tournament this year.

Woods was at 13-under 131, his best 36-hole score this year by six shots. And the four-shot lead over U.S. Open champion Graeme McDowell had to be a refreshing change for a guy who has been at least nine shots back through 36 holes in seven tournaments this year.

“I’ve been here before, so it’s not a strange feeling,” Woods said. “It’s just one of those things where tomorrow is the same game plan, just go out there and plot my way along and take care of the par 5s.”

He did that again on a pleasant day in the Conejo Valley, and now has played the five par 5s at Sherwood Country Club in 10 under through two rounds. That included an eagle on the second hole, and perhaps Woods’ most impressive shot of the day, if not the year. He hit a 4-iron from a hanging lie so severe that it caused Woods to stumble down the hill after impact.

The ball landed 8 feet away to the right of the pin.

And on the next hole, when Woods made a superb par save with a putter through a swale to about 3 feet, caddie Steve Williams walked off the green and said, “The tide is turning.”

McDowell keeps plugging away in his sixth straight week of competition, playing well enough to keep pace except for a few mistakes. He took a double bogey on the ninth hole, and failed to save par from a bunker on the 18th.

He was at 9-under 135, and will be paired with Woods in the final group Saturday.

“Sometimes in a four-round tournament, you get a round where you don’t really play your best,” McDowell said. “To shoot 3 under and not play my best, I’m pretty happy with that.”

Rory McIlroy played with Woods for the first time in competition – the Skins Game at the Memorial doesn’t count – and was impressed with what he saw. McIlroy caught flak at the Ryder Cup for saying he would love to play Woods if his game didn’t improve, although he doesn’t regret what he said – even Woods would agree with the “if his game didn’t improve” part – and both played well.

McIlroy only fell apart at the end.

He hit 5-wood on the par-5 16th that covered the flag and just went over the back of the green. On firm turf, however, he hit a thin chip some 20 feet away, narrowly missed the birdie putt, then watched his 2 1/2-foot par putt circle the cup and stay out.

On the 18th, McIlroy hit 7-iron over the green, chipped long off the back of the green and had to two-putt from 35 feet for a double bogey that gave him a 70.

The real excitement came from everyone behind them.

Paul Casey made a hole-in-one on the 12th hole, which carried him to a 7-under 65. Bubba Watson made the rarest shot in golf – an albatross – when he holed out his second shot on the par-5 16th. That was the difference in his 69, although he was still 14 shots behind.

Anthony Kim also made a nice recovery, chuckling at a report on a golf blog that he might have another injury after opening with a 79.

“It’s as good as ever,” Kim said after a 66.

Woods still has two rounds to show true signs that he is on his way back, and he has kept it simple at Sherwood – attack the par 5s and limit the mistakes.

As if often the case with anyone at any tournament, however, the putting stood out the most.

Not only did he made some key par saves and two good birdie putts inside 12 feet in his great start – he one-putted the first four holes and two-putted for birdie on the fifth – he constantly ran the ball some 3 to 4 feet beyond the hole.

Woods attributed that to having too many putts above the hole, although there was a confident look to his putting that had been missing for so much of the year. He no longer looked concerned by facing those par putts, and it showed. Seven times, he ran a birdie putt at least 3 feet by the hole and made them all.

“I hit a lot of pure putts,” Woods said. “I wasn’t quite as sharp as yesterday, but I was able to piece it together and figure out how to hit better shots when I was struggling a little bit. I hit a couple loose shots and all of a sudden, ‘OK, this is what I need to do to fix it.’ And I fixed it. So that was nice.”

Still, he missed only two greens in regulation, and the closest he came to bogey was on the final hole when he ran his birdie attempt some 5 feet by the hole. He made that for a bogey-free round, a rarity this year.

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Woods leads Chevron after opening 65

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. – Certainly, it wasn’t like the salad days of majors and walkovers that ushered in this century, but in a small way it felt like the good old days.

Though there was plenty of golf still on the course, fans were seen headed for the gates because Tiger Woods was done for the day. To them, the show was over.

OK, first disclaimer: “Plenty of golf still on the course” means just six players were still touring the last few holes at Sherwood Country Club, but hey, that’s a third of the field here at the Chevron World Challenge.

Oh, and a second disclaimer: We recognize that it’s a silly-seson event, meaningless perhaps for 17 of the 18 who are assembled here, but not for Woods. To him, this tournament carries great significance – not just because for the first time he’s able to play for his Chevron sponsors and not just because the charitable funds benefit his Tiger Woods Foundation. No, the importance of his first-round 65 that provided a one-stroke lead over that likeable entry from Northern Ireland, Graeme McDowell and Rory McIlroy, rests within the mind.

“A tournament like this at the very end of the year, if you play well, it does give you a shot of confidence,” Woods said after a performance that incuded 16 greens and birdies on each of the five par 5s.

Now there was a time when Woods overflowed with confidence – like Gates with cash or Trump with ego. Then came . . . well, Thanksgiving 2009 and a year’s worth of fallout that touched all parts of his life. While he worked hard to keep much of the wounds private, there was nothing he could do about the golf. It was out front for public consumption and in so many ways it wasn’t pretty.

The fact that he went winless for the first time in a PGA Tour season? Yes, it bothers him, but what truly stung is the way in which his golf ball went so off line at so many times. When finally in August he made the leap to trust his swing to Sean Foley, he insists he embraced a key component to the transition.

“I was putting togther streaks of holes earlier,” he said. “Two, three, four, five – and then I’d lose it for a little bit. Eventually I needed to get to a full round and then eventually a full tournament and today was a full round. So that’s a good start.”

And a rare one, too, because in this upside-down season, Woods played 14 tournaments and 53 rounds (and that includes the Australian Masters) and had the lead at the end of the day just once.

Repeat, once.

Not exactly positive stuff from the greatest front-runner in the history of golf, but now that he’s gone into the lead for a second time in 2010, he’s excited to see what happens.

“Most of the year, if I did get something going, I’d make some kind of mistake,” Woods said, and that was the case back in August when after opening with a 7 under 65 to lead the Barclays and pushing to 8 under on his first nine in Round 2, he bogeyed four times coming home then made a triple-bogey to start his third round.

Another tournament was kissed goodbye.

Now even if that scenario were to repeat itself here, Woods insists he’s happy with the progress he’s making with Foley. No, things aren’t perfect. “It’s not totally natural yet,” he said of the swing, but he’s committed to their collaboration.

For all of those reasons, Woods appeared to be having the most fun on the first day of an event that might appear casual – at least until you look at the purse. It’s a very serious sum, $5 million, and while Woods has the inside track on the top prize of $1.2 million, Anthony Kim seemed intent on taking the last-place $140,000 crumbs.

Going through the motions to the tune of 79, Kim made just one birdie and seemed no closer to finding an answer to his puzzling game. Ranked 19th in the world when invitations to the Chevron World Challenge were mailed out Sept. 20, Kim is still at 26, though playing like No. 260.

No worries, perhaps, since it’s a festival of fun, a rich party to celebrate a season well played, and that explains why so many had smiles. None as wide as Woods, of course, although Nick Watney came close.

“I wasn’t in this tournament on Saturday,” he said, “so I’m thrilled to be here and to have shot even par.”

Only a few weeks ago, Watney got married and honeymooned on the other side of the world. First in Shanghai where he played four rounds in the HSBC Champions, then in Bora Bora with his wife, Amber.

“I’m not so sure she liked getting on the plane for a 12-hour ride to China,” Watney said. But, yes, Bora Bora made up for that.

? ? ?

Extensive travel also was required by McDowell, McIlroy, Luke Donald, and Ian Poulter just to get here, the four of them having played last week at the European Tour finale in Dubai. They are globe-trotters, each of them, but proving he’s getting wiser by the day, 21-year-old McIlroy made the trip even more worthwhile by mixing business with pleasure – he stopped by a nearby Oakley office to sample the products he’s entitled to thanks to a new business partnership.

“A two-year deal,” McIlroy said.

Presuming that it meant 2011 and 2012, curious reporters suggested McIlroy was jumping in a bit early, wearing Oakley sunglasses and the company logo on his shirt and pants. He smiled and conceded that it might be construed a two-year-and-one-month deal, but he had to break them in.

? ? ?

Storylines being thin this time of year, McIlroy and Oakley qualified as news, and so, too, did a caddie shuffle of sorts. Sean O’Hair has split with veteran bagman Paul Tesori, though Tesori is here this week working for Camilo Villegas. That’s because Villegas’ caddie, Brett Waldman, is at the final stage of Q School. As for O’Hair, he has teamed with Brennan Little, Mike Weir’s longtime caddie, but it makes sense because the Canadian is on the sidelines nursing an elbow injury.

Going forward into 2011, O’Hair said he wasn’t sure what he’d do. Being friends with Weir, “I would never get in the way,” O’Hair said, and a serious option is his father-in-law, Steve Lucas, who caddied for him for years.

“We’ve talked about it,” O’Hair said.

There will, of course, be more time to talk, because what sits on the horizon is the off-season. Then again, “off-season” is a matter of perspective, because while a good many players will start next season in less than a month, whether it be Jan. 5 in Maui or Jan. 12 in Honolulu, Woods figures to have seven weeks off, assuming he’ll start the next season at Torrey Pines Jan. 27.

To help ease his winter hibernation, Woods would love to store up the confidence, and a 65 surely has him pointed in the right direction.

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Tiger trying to salvage season at Chevron

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Tiger Woods chats with Hunter Mahan at the Chevron World Challenge.

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. – He’d prefer to focus on his final chance to salvage the 2010 year, even if it’s at a silly-season event such as the Chevron World Challenge. The only thing is, inquiring minds want to know if Tiger Woods has formulated his 2011 schedule.

If the answer is yes, he’s not saying. Too many moving parts, it seems.

“There are a lot of things that we’re trying to adapt to, our new living conditions,” Woods said, a reference to the family issues that were central to his entire 2010 year. “That’s most important. We’re trying to figure all that out and then obviously I still want to play golf at a high level and win golf tournaments.”

Has he been approached by PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem, perhaps to add some tournaments?

Woods would only say that Finchem has “done that every year,” but there was no elaboration. Even when asked specifically if there was a chance he’d return to the tournament at Riviera – now the Northern Trust Open – for the first time since 2006, he was elusive.

“I don’t know yet,” Woods said.

Though it’s more than seven months since he made his return to the game at the Masters, Woods is still answering questions about the controversy that saw his world come crashing down. But on that front, he’s not as evasive, difficult as it has been.

“Harder than anyone could ever imagine, unless you’ve actually gone through it before yourself,” he said.

While he’s playing host to a select group of 17 other players at year’s end for the 12th time, Woods will be playing for the first time for Chevron officials. They took over sponsorship in 2008, but Woods was out with a knee injury come tournament time. Then last year . . . well, it was more painful than a knee injury, Woods will tell you, but enough of history; now No. 2 in the world, he’s excited to be at Sherwood CC and his final chance to make sure he doesn’t go winless in a season for the first time since turning pro.

Asked to put himself on the golf fan’s couch and suggest what he’d like to see in 2011 as the PGA Tour heads into contract negotiations with the networks, Woods laughed.

“I’d like to see me win more tournaments – as a golf fan, yes,” he said.

That’s right, he’s more than the game’s most celebrated and talked-about player. “I am (also) a viewer,” Woods said.

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