Dominance: The best of Tiger Woods
By Bill Felber
9. 2006 WGC American Express
Dominance: 2.93
As a WGC event, the 2006 Amex field featured 60 of the world’s best. As it turned out, 59 of them were there just to prove Woods’ superiority.
That probably didn’t come as a surprise. The WGC Amex had been played six times previously, with Woods emerging on top in four of those six.
That included 2005, when he beat John Daly in a playoff.
As he often did, Tiger left little doubt about the eventual outcome right from go. He carded a first-round 63 at The Grove in England, leading Ian Poulter and Padraig Harrington by one. There was no letup Friday, Woods’ 64 opened his advantage to a breathtaking five strokes over Jim Furyk, Stewart Cink and David Howell.
In this $7.5 million event, that left the non-Woods portion of the field playing for the $610,000 runner-up consolation prize. Ian Poulter and Adam Scott eventually claimed it, Poulter shooting 68-66 and Scott 65-69 on the weekend.
That was nice, in a non-Tigerish sort of way. But Woods strung together bookend rounds of 67 to polish them off by eight strokes.
His four-round total of 261 beat the 280.88 field average by 2.93 standard deviations, and won him the $1.3 million first-prize check.