Tiger Woods glad to be back in Chicago at BMW Championship

Tiger Woods needs a strong week at the BMW Championship to make a run to the FedEx Cup Playoff finale at East Lake. He’ll have plenty of good memories at Medinah to give him a boost along the way.

Tiger Woods is the second golfer this week to relish a return to Chicago area golf courses. Rory McIlroy expressed similar feelings upon his return to Medinah Country Club.

“I’ve had some really good memories and some wins here that have been pretty memorable for me,” Woods said to media after his morning pro-am.

What Woods means is that he’s been a winner several times in and around Chicago. The current BMW Championship is an outgrowth of the Western Open which Woods has won a combined five times beginning in 1997 when the tournament was held at Cog Hill, a noted public course outside Chicago.

In addition, twenty years ago this month, he won his first PGA Championship at Medinah. A young Sergio Garcia was making every effort to chase Woods down in the final round but could not catch him.

On Wednesday, Woods played nine holes of the pro-am and chipped and putted a second nine to save wear and tear on the oblique muscle that caused him to withdraw last week.

He feels that the rest he has given his body will do the trick and that he will be able to tee it up this week. However, as Woods noted, the issue is that he’s playing around a bad back.

"“The forces have got to go somewhere,” he said about the situation, “and unfortunately when I make any kind of tweaks and changes to my swing, it’s like a new body part is aching.”"

According to Woods, he’s been making swing modifications all season to take the pressure off his back.

"“Unfortunately, I haven’t really done a very good job of that, and when I have, I’ve hit the ball quite well,” he noted. “I was really excited about what I was doing at Liberty ( at last week’s Northern Trust).”"

In addition to nursing a back and having a sore oblique, Woods has to relearn a slightly tweaked golf course.

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"“It’s a lot longer than I remember. They’ve certainly lengthened it since ’99 and ’06 and when we played here in ’11,” he said. “Thirteen, it’s a big hole now, and they moved up 15. Now it’s drivable. Before we were hitting 2-irons down there from the back tee.”"

To compound the situation for Woods, his past injuries have caused him to have a reduced playing schedule this year.

"“That’s been one of the biggest challenges coming back from last year,” he explained. “You saw I’m making tweaks and changes, trying to play around this back and trying to be explosive and have enough rest time and training time. That’s been the biggest challenge of it all. This week is no different.”"

Tiger Woods is currently 38th in FedEx points and needs to add to that total to make it back to Atlanta.

In addition, those who have been following the Presidents Cup qualifying know that Woods hoped to make the team and be a playing captain. He is not in the top eight right now but wants to get there so he won’t be faced with a decision to pick or not pick himself. Currently, he’s 13th, and the top eight make the team automatically.

In March of 2018 at the press conference where he and Ernie Els were announced as captains for 2019, Woods was asked said if he would be a playing captain.

“I would like to get to a point where I would have to make that decision,” he admitted. “But I wouldn’t want to have the conversation and go, ‘Self (as a pick).’”

The four remaining picks will be made in November, but the date of the picks has not been announced. For now, Tiger Woods will be able to focus all his energy on the task at hand. His history at Medinah certainly should help.