SAN FRANCISCO— Tiger Woods, the winner of 15 career majors, will be looking for win number 16 as he heads to the West Coast during the first week of August, teeing off for his first major of the year at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco.
Unfortunately, for the Florida native, he’ll be battling some unseasonably cooler temperatures for this time of year, as forecasts predict it to be rather foggy in the Bay Area, and it won’t be kind to him as he deals with his ongoing back problem.
The 44-year old is used to much warmer, if not, at least, humid weather, which doesn’t make his surgically-repaired back tighten up too much, and force him to keep his core body temperature high while hitting a 300-yard drive off the tee. The elements are completely different in the Bay Area, however.
With all of the fog that exists there, the ball probably won’t be traveling as far as Tiger would like, regardless of how well he lines up his wood driver and blasts it through the fairway, but the veteran is prepared for what’s to come, as he stated, “It’s going to be playing longer. It’s heavy air whether the wind blows or not, but it’s still going to be heavy,” he said.
Luckily, Tiger has played really well his last few times at TPC Harding Park. He won the track at the 2005 WGC-American Express, a week in which he never shot higher than a 68 and also went 5-0-0 during the Presidents Cup when he played there in 2009.
All indications point to his track record making him a favorite, but Tiger still knows it won’t be easy, and he’s prepared for anything.
“I think that for me when it’s cooler like this, I need to make sure that my core stays warm, layering up properly,” he said. “I know I won’t have the same range of motion as I would back home in Florida where it’s 95 degrees every day. That’s just the way it is.”
He’ll be teeing off at 1:58pm local time on Thursday, August 6, which favors him much better, since the fog will have mostly cleared up by then.
