Tiger Woods Wins 60th PGA Tour Victory at BMW Championship
Tiger Woods’ victory at the BMW Championship in Lemont, Illinois puts him on top of 2007 FedEx Cup Playoffs standings.
The third round of the 2007 FedEx Cup Playoffs saw the top 70 PGA golfers in FedEx Cup Playoff points fighting it out for the 2007 BMW Championship, and the opportunity to place among the top 30 golfers to qualify for The Tour Championship presented by Coca-Cola at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, Georgia. The FedEx Cup Playoffs began two weeks ago with 144 golfers at The Barclays and each week, the number of players to qualify for the next rounds kept getting smaller and smaller by process of elimination. After all, it is a playoff, and only the top golfers advance based on their performance and points standings.
Phil Mickelson, the winner of The 2007 Deutsche Bank Championship last week, was in first place in the FedEx Cup points standings, but withdrew from the BMW Championship to take a rest. Because of that, Mickelson didn’t make any points, and instead allowed the field to catch up with him. Of course, the most notable performance from the rest of the field came from Tiger Woods.
Tiger Woods scored a remarkable 22-under for the entire four rounds of 18 holes in the Cog Hilll Golf and Country Club in Lemont Illinois to win the 2007 BMW Championship, earn his 60th career PGA victory and jump to first place in the FedEx Cup points leaderboard from 3rd, overtaking Steve Stricker and Phil Mickelson.
Australian golfer Aaron Baddeley was Tiger’s closest rival with a total 20-under for the tournament with Steve Stricker also giving chase with 18-under. But as far as the FedEx Cup Playoffs are concerned, there’s Tiger Woods at the top spot. Steve Stricker maintains his 2nd place standing. Phil Mickelson’s withdrawal from the BMW Championship moves him down from 1st place to 3rd. Rory Sabbatini moved up to 4th, exchanging places with South Korean K.J. Choi who moved down to 5th.
The field of 70 was dramatically trimmed to the top 30 players with FedEx Cup Points to move into the final playoff round at The Tour Championship presented by Coca-Cola next week at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, Georgia. Among the golfers who failed to make the top 30 include David Toms, Stuart Appleby, David Toms and Carl Pettersson.
The Tour Championship presented by Coca-Cola next week will once again showcase Tiger Woods, and this time we can look forward to another showdown as Phil Mickelson is expected to return for the last round of the FedEx Cup Playoffs. Hopefully, it’ll be as exciting as their last showdown at The Deutsche Bank Championship, where Mickelson had the better of Tiger Woods.
However, Tiger Woods is in great form. Woods tied his record for a lowest single round score with a 63, and if he continues to stroke like this, then we can expect Tiger Woods to win the FedEx Cup trophy and earn $10 million dollars for a first place finish in the standings. Tiger Woods doesn’t even have to win The Tour Championship. As long as he performs better than Steve Stricker or Phil Mickelson, and stays among the top names in the leaderboard for the tournament, then we can expect his points to be enough to make him the FedEx Cup Champion.
But then, Steve Stricker is also on top form, but will just need a little extra to get past Tiger Woods. Meanwhile, Phil Mickelson looks to continue the form he showed when he won last week’s Deutsche Bank Championship if he hopes to overtake the sizzling Tiger Woods. I’ll put money on Tiger Woods as the favorite, but I wouldn’t mind splashing some extra on Mickelson and Stricker just to be on the safe side. Hopefully, after the odds are calculated and all the bets have been balanced out, maybe i’ll be up a few bucks, or I wouldn’t lose to big. As much as Tiger Woods is in top form, there’s always that chance that he could have a golfing bad day, swinging from the rough and putting for double-bogey. But then, that’s golf, and that can happen to anyone.
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