Tiger Woods, Rickie Fowler share lead at TOUR Championship

Tiger Woods and Rickie Fowler have both fought hard over recent weeks to give themselves an outside shot at the FedEx Cup title. After the first round of the TOUR Championship, they find themselves right where they need to be: on top of the leaderboard.

It may be the week of “beware the recently injured golfer”.

Rickie Fowler, who skipped the first two FedEx Cup Playoff events with an oblique muscle injury, played his way to the top of the leaderboard in the first round of the TOUR Championship. He’s tied with Tiger Woods, who, as everyone knows, is recently recovered from a fourth back surgery. Both posted 65 in the first round.

Fowler talked about the few things he did while he was recovering.

“I could still work out, take care of that, and doing some chores around the house, but I really couldn’t swing at all just because I was trying to rest my right oblique as much as possible, and it was definitely the right call,” Fowler said about his recent recovery schedule.

He took two and a half weeks away from tournament golf because he didn’t want to make the injury worse and because he wanted to be in shape for this week and for next week’s Ryder Cup. He did not ice it or have laser treatments on it. He just rested. Today, he said he did not take any painkillers other than Advil because he didn’t want to mask a problem.

"“I managed my way around the weekend at Akron, and then the week of the PGA [Championship], I had to nurse it a bit,” he noted. “There was a lot of therapy post-round and taping up before the round.”"

But now he’s pain free and swinging with ease again.

“I wouldn’t have wanted to deal with how it felt the PGA week for a continued amount of time,” he added.

When asked if he had the oblique taped this week, he said, “No. Do you want to see?” That was never going to happen.

Tiger Woods found a way to keep his driver behaving properly. He missed only one fairway on the first nine, and had one drive in the fringe and two in the rough on the back. The driver and shaft changes he made recently, he thinks, are helping.

“If I hit it normal, I hit it just as far,” he said, noting that it goes about 300 yards in the air.

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However, his misses aren’t so far off the mark and he is able to turn the ball with this club.

"“The neat thing is I don’t have to swing it as hard to hit the ball as far,” he added. “It puts a little less toll on my body. I don’t have to have my speed up there at 120, 121, 122 miles an hour to carry it 305, 310 like I did before.”"

With the club he had been using, he could play only a cut or a straight ball. He also noted that it was not carrying far enough for his tastes. In addition, he needed a different swing for a driver than his 3-wood, 5-wood or 2-iron.

“I didn’t want to do that anymore,” he said about the different swings for different clubs.

Both golfers finished well. Fowler birdied the 18^th hole. A short time later, Woods eagled it, sending a characteristic “Tiger Woods roar” into the pines and oaks that line the fairways at East Lake. It was an unmistakable sound.

While Woods is still having a little trouble remembering the hole numbers with the flipping of the nines, he likes the final one as a par five instead of a par three.

"“I think it provides a good environment with the last hole being a par-5,” he noted. “You know that things can flip there versus if you just make a par with the lead, the way it was originally done, you know you’re going to win the tournament.”"

Next. Tiger Woods has sights set on TOUR Championship, FedEx Cup victory. dark

Fowler said he is ready for the challenge of playing with a resurgent Tiger Woods, as they hold the final tee time in the second round, currently scheduled for 2 p.m. Eastern.

"“I definitely am in a lot better position now than I was in the early part of my career,” he admitted. “There is a little bit of a comfort level that you have to get used to playing alongside him, especially in a big situation, in a final group.”"

He said he would look forward to it now. It’s a good thing, because starting tomorrow golfers are paired by score.

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