Tiger Woods welcomes the PGA Tour to his AT&T National tournament at Congressional Country Club near Washington DC on Thursday looking to be the worst host possible.
The world number one will for the third year stage a tournament at the Bethesda course looking to win one of his own events for the second time after landing his Target World Challenge. Woods missed both his events last year as he recuperated from reconstructive knee surgery but he said he was raring to make amends at Congressional this weekend.
"I always put in as much as I possibly can to win an event," he said. "Certainly I love being the gritty host."
He added: "It is fun winning your own event. It's no doubt, it is awfully fun to do that. Hopefully I can do that again this week."
Woods, though, is relishing the opportunity to prepare for his next bid to land a 15th major of his professional career and move closer to Jack Nicklaus's record of 18 victories.
His next two chances come at the Open Championship at Turnberry in two weeks and three weeks later at the US PGA Championship at Hazeltine in Minnesota.
"Looking forward to the next two," Woods said. "I've never played Turnberry, so looking forward to getting there and playing. Hazeltine has been a while, but I came close there, and I like Hazeltine.
"As far as getting ready for Turnberry... I've only seen it on TV. The last time was in '94. There's only so much you can see on videotape. I'll have to get there in person.
"But the whole idea before I get there is actually to have everything dialled in, feel comfortable with my swing, short putting, everything dialled in.
"Then start getting the feel for how to play over there. Then you've got to get your sight lines, and all that means is I have to do more homework once I get there and do more prep work on the greens and make sure I truly understand how to play the golf course and have a game plan come Thursday."
01 July, 2009