Tiger Woods has had a workman attitude while playing alongside Masters Champ, Adam Scott, and Open Champion, Phil Mickelson during the first two rounds of the Deutsche Bank Championship. Even in the shadow of Mickelsons's opening round 63 where Lefty seemed to make every putt he attempted, Tiger remained cool, calm and collected.
Athough Tiger's back was a huge question mark coming into this event at TPC Boston, he has played very steady, and doesn't appear to be in any pain as he was at the Barclays last Sunday. He followed his opening round 68 on Saturday with a 67. He has a seven under par total, and is only six strokes off the lead posted on Saturday by Sergio Garcia.
With only two bogeys on his score card for the week, Tiger has not been playing badly, but he doesn't look as sharp as he does when he dominates. He started finding fairways and greens on Saturday, but hasn't had that laser sharp distance control. He's not getting good looks at birdies on the greens.
He improved his driving accuracy on Saturday by around 20% giving him a 10% gain in GIR's, but his numbers on the green could, and will get better if he wants a shot at the championship.
Halfway through the second FedEx Cup playoff event, he still solidly leads in points, and doesn't seem to be willing to let anyone climb into that spot. He is well ahead of Adam Scott who is number two on the list, and had a terrible Friday, shooting two over par. Scott recovered nicely on Saturday, but is still four back of Woods, and will begin Sunday at three under par.
Tiger will start play on Sunday only one stroke back of Mickelson who came back to earth on Saturday, and struggled to find any fairways. Even though Phil hit some great shots, they were recovery shots and he could only manage even par.
Tiger Woods is one nice round of golf on Sunday away from being in contention in Boston. Although there are some good people in front of him when he tee's off just before noon on Sunday, there aren't many who won't be watching the leaderboards, and listening for the cheers that will come if he can get hot.
We all saw what happened at The Players, so you know Sergio Garcia will have his ears open for those cheers!!
