By his own admission, Tiger Woods had trouble sleeping last Sunday night, through the excitement generated by his amazing USPGA Championship triumph. But the impression yesterday was of business as usual, as he prepared for the defence of the $5 million WCG/NEC Invitational here at Firestone.
"The season is not over yet," he said. "I have a very hectic schedule at the end of the year, with eight tournaments all over the world." In fact a demanding, eight-week stint will start in mid-October with the President's Cup in Virginia and end with the World Cup in Argentina in early December.
Padraig Harrington couldn't dream of looking that far ahead, given an ongoing problem with his neck which prompted him to have an MRI in a local hospital here on Tuesday night. On a scale of one to 10, he put his chances of actually teeing-up this morning at "seven or eight", but of being fully fit at no better than two.
"The preliminary results of the scan suggest that there's nothing seriously wrong," he said, while smashing three-iron shots down the practice-range before heading out to play the front nine. "I'll see how things are overnight and then make a decision in the morning."
An elite 37-player field - Vijay Singh was a late withdrawal yesterday through injury - will be competing for a maximum of $1 million and a minimum of $30,000 and Harrington is first of the three Irish challengers into action, with Australian Stuart Appleby at 11.30 a.m. local time (4.30 p.m. Irish time).
Two pairings later, Paul McGinley is with Ernie Els at 11.50 and Darren Clarke starts at 12.0 with Canadian left-hander Mike Weir.
On this, his debut in the event, McGinley has worked extremely hard since last weekend and was quite up-beat about his form during a practice round yesterday with Thomas Bjorn and Andrew Coltart. Clarke, meanwhile, is viewing this as crucial to his hopes of winning the European Order of Merit in which he is currently second, about £50,000 behind the leader Lee Westwood.
"I'd like to give Lee and Monty (Colin Montgomerie) a good run for their money, but there's a long way to go," he said yesterday. "It would be fantastic if I were to win the Order of Merit and I think my schedule is fairly well balanced."
Clarke is acutely aware of a decidedly moderate record at Firestone where he was tied 36th, from 41 competitors, 12 months ago. "It is an old, traditional course which presents a fantastic challenge," he said. "Up to now, it has got the better of me, but I'm determined to turn that around."
It presented problems even for Woods last year when, against an extremely tight par of 70, he shot rounds of 66, 71, 62 and 71 for a 10-under-par aggregate of 270 and a one-stroke victory over Phil Mickelson. And in two previous challenges here, he was tied fifth in 1998 and tied third the previous year.
Meanwhile, it was fascinating to note his observations on Ben Hogan, whose record he equalled last Sunday by capturing his third professional major championship in one year. Most players would be thrilled to stand alongside the legendary Hawk, widely acknowledged as the finest ball-striker in the history of the game. But Woods is not convinced about Hogan.
"It's pretty neat to have done the same thing as a great player like that was able to accomplish," he said. "But I've always wanted to know whether his ball-striking was, I guess, enhanced through time or was it really that good.
"Butch (Harmon, Woods' coach) said Hogan liked to work the ball and that he was very good. In fact, considering the equipment they had back then, he was extraordinary. But, according to Butch, a lot of players now hit the ball comparable to how Hogan hit it, because we have equipment that is so much better. It's hard to compare the two."
From those words and from similar comments in the past, it can be taken that Woods has no wish to be compared with Hogan who, ironically, was posthumously honoured here yesterday with the "Ambassador of Golf Award", along with his contemporary, Sam Snead.
Nicklaus, with his 18 professional majors, is the man he targeted from childhood and nothing has changed in the wake of last weekend.
He then dealt with a conundrum which has always baffled this particular mortal: how do great players manage to sink so many, critical putts as Woods did last Sunday when he single-putted 11 of his last 15 greens? Nicklaus did it, so did Tom Watson and Nick Faldo, as if they were operating in controlled, laboratory conditions.
"I think it is the product of a lot of hard work, but physically, it would be impossible to do it all the time," he said. "I don't even know if you can will the ball into the hole. "But when I look back at those putts, I realise that I released the blade better than I normally do, because I'm not thinking about it. I am just thinking about the hole and how I am going to get the ball in there. And I just putt it in there."
He concluded: "I believe this is because your concentration level is higher when you're going for a major. You try to get the same concentration level on the first hole of a normal tour event as you do on the last hole of a major championship, but it never works out that way. I guess it's human nature."
All of which means that, while we may not see the ultimate in Woods' putting skills this weekend, they will probably meet the situation more than adequately.
