This week, the PGA Tour returns to Firestone Country Club for the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, the setting for what might be the most impressive decade of dominance in PGA Tour history.
Tiger Woods' 14 career major championships and 74 PGA Tour wins are the fruits of a career that has never failed to amaze. But his record in this tournament stands apart from anything the game has ever seen.
Woods' unparalleled ledger at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational defies all logic. It's simply jaw-dropping. For a decade, Tiger put an MMA-style chokehold on storied Firestone, leaving competitors flailing and mouths agape.
Between 1999 and 2009, Woods played the Bridgestone 10 times, missing the 2008 tournament with injury. In those 10 years, he won the tournament seven times. That's an acceptable percentage for free throws. For golf tournaments, it's insane.
The three years Woods failed to win, he finished 4th, T4 and T2. Over a 10-tounament span, that's an average finish of 1.7.
Let all that sink in for a minute. The WGC events assemble the greatest fields in world golf. The Firestone South course layout is a classic track that has hosted three PGA Championships. Woods has treated the tournament, the course and the field like he was Steve Williams and they were pesky photographers.
Over those 10 tournaments, from 1999-2009, Woods won $9,352,500. That number would rank sixth on an all-time list of single-season earnings, and Woods accumulated it in 10 tournaments. Over that span, Woods averaged 67.5 strokes per round on a course that Arnold Palmer once dubbed a "Monster."
Symptomatic of Tiger's recent decline, he failed to contend at the Bridgestone in 2010 and 2011, finishing T78 and T37, respectively, the last two years.
Consider this week a barometer for the state of Tiger's game. It's his best tournament. Heck, it's probably the best tournament for any player in the game's history.
If he's truly "back," he'll win it for the eighth time.
- by Rob Doster
Follow me on Twitter @AthlonDoster
So did Ernie Els win it? Or did Adam Scott lose it? Both. The agony and the ecstasy of golf were on full display at Royal Lytham & St. Annes, and when it was over, Els had his second Claret Jug and fourth major, and Scott had first-hand knowledge of what it feels like to be Greg Norman. Or Jason Dufner.











