Dominance: The best of Tiger Woods
By Bill Felber
3. 2009 BMW
Dominance: 3.31
The BMW is the penultimate event of each championship season, the final run-up to the Tour Championship at East Lake. For the first decade of his professional career, it was also a favorite playground for Woods.
That was especially true when the event was conducted at Cog Hill, the challenging public course just west of Chicago. Woods beat Frank Nobilo at Cog by three strokes in 1997, finished off Mike Weir by three strokes in 1999, and cruised by five in 2003.
When the FedEx Cup Trophy was created to honor an overall tour champion in 2007, the BMW assumed the role of semi-final event. Woods, who won that 2007 trophy, came to the 2009 BMW in position to all but lock up the season-long title with a victory at the BMW.
He did not disappoint. One stroke ahead of Marc Leishman and Padraig Harrington at the 36-hole mark, he scorched Cog hill with a Saturday 62 that ballooned his lead to a stunning seven strokes over Leishman and Mark Wilson.
With that margin in hand, his closing 68 was anti-climactic, and his eight-stroke victory over Leishman and Jim Furyk left nothing about the overall FedEx Cup winner to chance. His 265 was 3.31 standard deviations better than the 285.39 field average.
One week later at East Lake, Woods finished second to Phil Mickelson,. By then, however, he had built such a formidable overall lead that the season victory was his by an imposing margin of 1,800 points.