WGC-Bridgestone Invitational Preview

Could the last three days have been any more predictable?

Tiger Woods held off the likes of Roland Thatcher, Greg Chalmers, Matt Bettencourt and Michel Letzig to capture his third career Buick Open title.

As if anyone who turned on a television set on Sunday afternoon would have expected anything different.

After 54-holes, Greg Norman was just one stroke behind Fred Funk in the Senior US Open, which was being held at Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel, Indiana.

Hmm, I wonder how this one is going to turn out.

Norman squandered yet another chance at winning a major championship when he fired a 73 in the final round and finished a mere eight-strokes behind Funk.

Chris Evert or no Chris Evert, this was the same old Greg Norman on Sunday afternoon of a major championship.

Michelle Wie was—surprise, surprise—selected as a captain’s pick for the 2009 Solheim Cup.

After all, it’s not like the LPGA’s survival is riding almost solely on the back of Michelle Wei or anything.

And Buick’s relationship with the PGA Tour finally clunked out for good when they announced on Tuesday that they would be discontinuing all of their title sponsorships after the 2009 season, including the Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines where Tiger Woods typically makes his season debut.

So, now we have the PGA Tour picking up the tab for two tournaments in 2010—the Bob Hope Classic & St. Jude Classic—and we have two additional tournaments with no sponsors at all.  Not to mention the slew of title sponsorship deals that are set to conclude after the 2010 season. 

Would you want to be in Tim Finchem’s shoes right now?

But, as they say, the show must go on, and it should be a good one at that in Akron, Ohio, where the top 81 players in the world are on hand to attend the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational.

Here are this week’s most intriguing storylines.

Tiger Woods:

It’s not very often that you see a player win a PGA Tour event despite his erratic golf swing, but, that’s exactly what Tiger Woods did last week at the Buick Open.

Call me a pessimist or the prototypical ‘glass is half empty’ guy, but the fact of the matter is that Woods was all over the place last week in Flint, Michigan and was simply lucky that Warwick Hills plays about as long as a pitch and putt course and that no one chasing him down on the leaderboard was even ranked within the top-100 in the world.

Woods himself appeared to have about as much of an idea where his tee shots were headed as those watching in the gallery or on television.

Woods hit just 43 percent of fairways on Sunday and played his way through the easiest stretch of holes at Warwich Hills (12^th-14^th), or any course for that matter, at even par.

The fact that Woods was still able to win despite the way he was striking the ball all weekend is an incredibly impressive feat in its own right.

But, although he may have been able to get away with erratic ball striking and an unpredictable putter at the Buick Open, the same is unlikely to happen this week at Firestone Country Club, where Woods has won six times.

Woods will need to hit the ball considerably better if he wants to contend against the top players in the world at an extremely difficult golf course.

Woods’ performance this week at Firestone will give us a far more accurate indication of where his game stands as we head into the PGA Championship.

Phil Mickelson

The fact that Phil Mickelson is even playing this week is excellent news in more ways than one.

It’s of course great news for the PGA Tour that the number two ranked player in the world is returning to competitive golf.

But, more importantly, it’s an indication that things are headed in the right direction for his wife, Amy, and his mother, both of whom are in the process of recovering from breast cancer.

What should we expect from Mickelson this week at Firestone?

Well, standard logic would tell us that he’ll probably be a bit rusty and that we shouldn’t expect too much from him.

However, that’s what many people also thought heading into the US Open and he dam near won the thing.

This season, Mickelson has once again demonstrated that he is clearly the second best player in the world behind Tiger Woods.

Although Mickelson would never publically admit it, he’s at Firestone this week for one reason and one reason only—to gear-up for next week’s PGA Championship.

The Field

For most players, golf is a game of streaks.

It has been said that a large majority of professional golfers make 70 percent of their money during a six week stretch of the season.

Last year, Padraig Harrington caught fire at exactly the right time and wound up winning both the Open Championship and the PGA Championship.

Who will catch fire at exactly the right time this year?

Could Tiger Woods be heating up just in time for his last shot at a major championship in 2009?

Could it be Stewart Cink?

Sergio Garcia?

Paul Casey?

Geoff Ogilvy?

Zach Johnson?

Or could it be another player that we may not yet have heard much about?

Everyone in the field at the Bridgestone Invitational will be looking to build some momentum to carry into next week’s PGA Championship.

Which player or players might actually catch fire this week and head to Hazeltine on a high is anyone’s guess.