Tiger Woods: TOUR Championship win, FedEx Cup title still in sight

Tiger Woods is focused on one thing at this week’s TOUR Championship: bringing home the ‘W’. Here’s why you would be foolish to count out his chances of victory, even when it comes to bringing home the FedEx Cup title.

Tiger Woods is back at the TOUR Championship to cap off an unimaginable comeback season. And what’s more – he believes he can win it all, including the FedEx Cup championship.

Don’t count him out.

Although Woods has won the Tour Championship twice, only one of those victories came at East Lake. However, he thinks the course plays to his strengths. You can relive some of his 2007 triumph in the Playoff Finale below.

"“In general, this golf course is a ball striker’s course. I mean, you’ve got to hit your golf ball well. You’ve got to drive it well, place your irons correctly,” he said. “But it really does set up for a good ball striker. For most of my career, that’s basically what I’ve done.”"

However, this season, he has not been able to put all the parts of his game together and score better than the field. He has been close, but he has not come out on top yet. It’s a big yet.

“I haven’t driven it well, I haven’t hit my irons well, I haven’t chipped well, I haven’t putted well,” he noted. In other words, he has not played up to his expectations, based on his career record.

“I seem to have gotten most of those things going well, but there’s always something missing. It could be any of those facets of the game; I just haven’t put it all together at the same time. That’s something that hopefully will come together this week.”

The last time he played East Lake Golf Club the nines were switched, a fact that had him baffled for a while when he played a practice round.

“We were going to go off and play the back nine yesterday, and we played the back nine, and I thought it was the front nine,” Woods admitted to media at a press conference prior to the Tour Championship.

ATLANTA, GA – SEPTEMBER 19: Tiger Woods warms up on the chipping green during practice for the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club on September 19, 2018 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) /

“I’ve seen it on TV, but I haven’t – I still think that 18 is a par-3.”

He thinks the 15^th is the 6^th,and so on.

“I’ll figure out here over the next day or so,” he added.

Meanwhile, he is still counting his lucky stars that he’s able to play golf at all.

“To have come back from where I’ve come back from and to get here has been a pretty tall order and something I’m proud of,” he said. “I look at this year more as I’ve exceeded a lot of my expectations and goals because so much of it was an unknown.”

To get to the Tour Championship, Woods had to modify his swing, change his equipment and work hard on his fitness so that he could make it through the season.

“I just needed to keep my body strong, keep it moving, and eventually I would find a game that could contend, and that eventually would lead to wins,” he said.

More from Pro Golf Now

Should Tiger Woods win the TOUR Championship, it would be an historic sports feat, perhaps equal to the comeback of Ben Hogan.

With the changes in medicine from the 1950s to now, and the differences in their injuries, no accurate comparison is really possible, but Woods and Hogan are certainly the two biggest comebacks in golf history. Hogan won majors after his return. So far, Woods has not, but no one is counting him out.

Now, let’s ask the really impossible. If Woods did happen to win, could he also win the FedEx Cup? That is a big ask. Currently, he’s No. 20 on the points list. The only way Woods could win the cup is for all of the following to occur:

Woods has to win the Tour Championship and,

Bryson DeChambeau has to finish T15 or worse
Justin Rose has to finish 3-way tie for 5^th or worse
Tony Finau has to finish T3 or worse
Dustin Johnson and Justin Thomas have to finish in a 3-way for 2^nd or worse
Keegan Bradley has to finish T2 or worse.

Next. 2018 TOUR Championship: Power ranking all 30 players in the field at East Lake. dark

If all of those things happen, then yes, Tiger Woods would win the FedEx Cup. The chances seem remarkably slim, but people at the lower end of the points list have gone to the top and those who are at the top have fallen. Sure, realistically, it’s a long shot.

However, with just 30 players in the field, he could definitely win the Tour Championship, and it’s now on his radar. This is, of course, Tiger Woods we’re talking about. Even if all the odds seem stacked against him, who would ever count him out after all we’ve seen in 2018?

"“It’s great to have accomplished one of the goals I set out at the beginning of the year, to make it back to East Lake, to be part of the Tour Championship and part of these top 30 guys,” he said. “Now I want to get the W and then head into next week in the Ryder Cup.”"

Home/PGA