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MIAMI — You don't have to worry about Tiger Woods someday starting his own tour. He's already got one. It's called the World Golf Championships.
We may as well officially rename it the Tiger Tour because he has dominated it to the point of being laughable. By capturing the CA Championship Sunday at Doral, he has now won 13 of 24 WGC events, including five of the last seven. He's six-for-eight in the CA Championship. He's won $18 million in Tiger Tour events. That figure alone would rank him in the top 25 on the PGA Tour's career money list, ahead of David Duval, Paul Azinger, Mark O'Meara and Greg Norman.
What makes WGC events so easy for Tiger to dominate? The smaller fields. Only 73 players competed last week. In the field were the likes of Prom Meesawat (he shot 16 over), Hideto Tanihara (17 over), Yong-Eun Yang (13 over), Louis Oosthuizen and John Bickerton (seven over each). Not in the field were the Ryder Cuppers Vaughn Taylor, Scott Verplank, Darren Clarke and Lee Westwood. The WGC fields are top-heavy but not very deep, and thus easier to win. As if Tiger needs any extra help.
Add Doral to the list of courses where Woods is money, such as Firestone, Augusta National and St. Andrews. He is 74 under through 20 rounds at Doral — 31 under on the front, 43 under on the back. That par-5 opening hole? It's not a par 5 for Woods. He has birdied or eagled it 18 of the last 20 times, including the last 16 in a row. This is three wins in a row at Doral, the last two coming in the defunct Ford Championship.
"I love this golf course," Woods said. "I always play well here."
He showed it Friday, firing a 66 in gusty conditions, then backing it up the next day with a 68 to open a four-shot lead going into the final round. The tournament seemed over before Sunday because Tiger was 38-3 with a 54-hole lead — make that 39-3.
The lead pursuer was Brett Wetterich, who didn't seem like the kind of player who had enough experience to put any pressure on Woods. As it turned out, he did at the end, but it was too little and too late. Of course, it's never a good idea to spot the game's best player four shots.
Sunday afternoon's gusty winds were as strong as any all week. Woods kept his hefty cushion throughout the front nine. He birdied the opening hole with a 16-foot putt. After missing a five-footer for par at the third, where the exposed green next to the lake is among the windiest spots on the course, he made another eight-foot par save at the fourth after running his 50-foot birdie putt past the hole. He added a short birdie at the fifth and played a low approach shot at the sixth that bored through the wind and over the green, leaving him a tough up and down. He missed that par putt, but made a six-footer at the next hole to for a nice sand save.
Woods seemed ready to romp when he birdied the tenth to open a six-shot lead, but he three-putted the 11th for bogey and missed a par putt at 13. Wetterich made things exciting by making a birdie at the downwind 16th hole to get within three. Then, he hit it to eight feet at the 17th green and missed the putt. That stroke proved crucial. It let Woods play the 18th with a three-shot cushion and lay up off the tee with an iron.
