WGC-CA Championship at Doral

This weekend, an international field will tee off at The Blue Monster Course at Doral Resort near Miami, in the World Golf Championship – CA Championship at Doral, to compete for an $8 million total purse with a $1.44 million winner’s share.

The Blue Monster is tough to conquer on any given day, but recently no one on the PGA Tour can seem to beat Tiger Woods, who wears red on Sundays.

Last week, Tiger claimed the Arnold Palmer Invitational on a dramatic 24-foot putt on the 72nd hole at Bay Hill. The victory moved Woods into a tie with Ben Hogan for third on the all-time wins list, with 64 career titles — trailing only legends Jack Nicklaus (73) and Sam Snead (82).

More impressive, the No. 1 ranked golfer in the world has now won all four tournaments he has played in 2008 — the Arnold Palmer Invitational (March 16), WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship (Feb. 24), Dubai Desert Classic (Feb. 3 on European Tour) and Buick Invitational (Jan. 27).

In fact, Woods has won the past five official PGA Tour events he has played and seven straight tournaments counting the Dubai Desert Classic and the Target World Challenge, which is unofficial because it does not count towards the Tour’s money list. But that does not seem to matter to Woods heading to the WGC-CA Championship at Doral.

“Whatever I’ve done the last few weeks is inconsequential. It doesn’t count for this week. I have to play well this week in order to win this event,” said Woods, on his official website. “You’ve got to put all that aside and get out there and be ready come Thursday and then put yourself in position come Sunday.”

Historically, Woods has been especially strong at The Blue Monster and in the WGC-CA Championship, which has been hosted by several different courses since its inception in 1999. Tiger has won the last three events held at Doral (2007 WGC-CA Championship, 2006 and 2005 Doral Open) as well as six of the eight WGC-CA Championships.

While Woods has raised the trophy following the WGC-CA Championship in 1999, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2007, only two other players have been able to win the tournament once since it started — Canada’s Mike Weir in 2000 and South Africa’s Ernie Els in 2004. The event was cancelled in 2001 due to the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Obviously, Tiger wants to win every tournament he tees off in. But regular PGA Tour wins — even prestigious ones like World Golf Championship events — are not his primary objective. The 13-time major champion Woods is out to surpass Nicklaus’ record of 18 major championship wins.

“You don’t really get remembered for number of wins in a career. It’s the number of wins in major championships. Those are the biggest events,” said Woods.

“We as players put so much emphasis on those major championships. They mean so much, and not only to us but in the historical sense. …

“This week is a new week. And I’m trying to get this one and make sure my game is right for Augusta. As I’ve always said, you want to peak four times a year, and I want everything going positively that way.”

This will be Tiger’s last scheduled tournament before the first major championship of the PGA Tour season, The Masters (April 10-13). So, this is his final opportunity to hone his game against the best in the world on one of the Tour’s most difficult courses.

The 7,266-yard, Par-72 course is one of the most notorious on the PGA Tour schedule. Originally designed by Dick Wilson and later restored by Raymond Floyd, The Blue Monster earned its name because of its distance — as one of the first courses on Tour that played longer than 7,000 yards — and difficulty — with its deep Bermuda rough and undulating greens.

But it is the tidal wave of water hazards that is the trademark of The Blue Monster. Of the course’s 18 holes, 14 have water in play. And none of those is more challenging than the finishing hole of No. 18, which is guarded by a man-made lake that runs alongside the skinny fairway and tiny green.

The 18th hole is a Par-4, 467-yard menace that features water on the left, sand traps on the right and a fairway that narrows to just 32 yards wide at roughly the 275-yard marker. The infamous hole ranked as the most difficult — out of 990 holes on 55 courses — on the PGA Tour in 2007.

A star-studded field that includes undefeated Tiger Woods, as well as Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Vijay Singh, K.J. Choi, Sergio Garcia and Jim Furyk, will go toe-to-toe this weekend. And barring a runaway victory, the 72nd hole of the tournament will likely determine the winner of the WGC-CA Championship at Doral, which will be televised by GOLF Channel on Thursday and Friday (2:00-6:00 p.m. ET) before NBC takes over on Saturday (2:00-6:00 p.m. ET) and Sunday (3:00-7:00 p.m. ET).