Woods, Stricker, Mickelson vie for $10 million bonus

2007-09-12

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By Andrew BothPA SportsTicker Golf Writer

ATLANTA, Georgia (Ticker) - Tiger Woods, Steve Stricker andPhil Mickelson will vie this week for the $10 million bonusawarded to the winner of the PGA Tour's new playoff series.

They are the only players with a realistic chance of winning thefour-event series, which culminates with the Tour Championshipstarting at East Lake on Thursday, where another $7 million willbe up for grabs in the tournament itself.

Woods leads the playoffs with 112.733 points, 3,133 points aheadof Stricker and 4,120 points in front of Mickelson.

The winner of the Tour Championship will receive 10,300 points,with 6,200 for second, 3,900 for third, and so on down to 395points for last place.

This means Woods and Stricker control their own fate. If theywin the tournament, they will win the series, whereas Mickelsoncan win the tournament and still not be assured of topping thepoints list.

Each has won one playoff event, with Stricker taking the first,Mickelson the second, and Woods on Sunday. Woods enters asfavorite given his recent hot form which includes threevictories in his past four starts.

Woods on Wednesday spoke for the first time about the swingchanges he made after a disappointing Open at Carnoustie inJuly.

But Woods, who is working increasingly alone, without thepresence of coach Hank Haney, said it would be a stretch to sayhis swing was starting to resemble the one he honed underprevious coach Butch Harmon in the late 1999s.

"I wouldn't say (my swing is) more upright (but) I'm standing alittle closer (to the ball)," Woods said. "After playing in thewind, my set-up got a little quirky.

"If I get my weight more towards the balls of my feet, it lookslike I'm more upright, when I'm actually not."

Mickelson, meanwhile, met with tour commissioner Tim Finchem onTuesday night to discuss the playoff system, but wastight-lipped of their discussions.

"We knew the FedEx Cup was going to need refining," Mickelsonsaid. "Changes to make it better and better are hopefully goingto keep occurring."

Much of the pre-Tour Championship focus has been on thesub-standard state of the greens, which have been scorched by asummer heat wave.

However, they are not as bad as most players feared, and showerson Tuesday didn't hurt either. Still, the greens will be notbe cut as low as usual this week, and will be unusually slow.

This, Woods thinks, will not help the good putters.

"How many bad putters over the years have you seen win Augusta(the Masters), the fastest, most sloping greens?" Woods asked.

Justin Rose, Padraig Harrington and Sergio Garcia are the onlyEuropeans in the 30-man field, with Australian Adam Scott thedefending champion.