Woods returns from knee surgery just in time for the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines

By MICK ELLIOTT
Media General News Service
Published: June 9, 2008

The interesting thing about this week’s U.S. Open is nobody has a clue.
It didn’t start out that way. When the 2008 season began, pretty much everybody figured to be an expert on the U.S. Golf Association’s national championship that begins Thursday at Torrey Pines Golf Course in San Diego. One word said everything you needed to know: Tiger.
Because the public course that borders the Pacific Ocean also hosts the PGA Tour’s annual Buick Invitational, it didn’t take a psychic hotline to settle on the early favorite. Six times since 1999, including the past four, Tiger Woods has won the January event, suggesting he has something working there besides simply being the world’s No.1 player.
So inviting were Woods’ early prospects for Torrey Pines that golf’s most popular offseason activity was to concede the Masters and U.S. Open and go straight to debating the prospects of a single-season grand slam.
Even Woods found himself somewhat caught up in the optimism, suggesting a sweep of the year’s majors was “easily within reason.”
Then, of course, Woods limped to the finish line at Augusta as runner-up to Trevor Immelman and a few days later had knee surgery for the second time on the ailing left joint. He has not played a competitive round since, and only last week returned to the golf course — playing out of a cart. He also was spotted still limping when he arrived in Detroit at a scheduled promotional appearance and conference call Monday.
“Knee is doing better,” he said that day. “The rehab is working. It gets really old riding that bike, man. But everything is on schedule. Just trying to get this thing organized for the Open. Right on schedule for that.”
More than a few skeptics are going to have to see it to believe it — an idea that brings another unknown twist to the week.
Thanks to the West Coast time difference, it will be a U.S. Open viewed in prime time, all four days of play scheduled to end at 9 p.m. Eastern or later.
Under the right circumstances (“Tiger, don’t fail us now”), NBC and USGA officials see the potential of doubling or possibly tripling weekend television ratings.
But if Woods is not able to carry the load on one leg, then who will it be?
During Woods’ two-month absence, Phil Mickelson, Adam Scott and Sergio Garcia were among the beneficiaries. Mickelson is No. 2 in the world rankings. Scott is third and Garcia 11th. But even with victories, none showed convincing promise as this week’s front man.
Mickelson won at Colonial with one of those final-hole miracle shots of which he is capable, and he has a victory and plenty of experience at Torrey Pines having grown up in Southern California.
Except in major-championship play, Mickelson has yet to prove he has recovered from that final-hole meltdown two years ago at Winged Foot. With a chance to win back-to-back majors in the middle of Tiger’s era, his drive went off a hospitality tent on the way to making double bogey and losing by one. A tie for fifth in April at the Masters was his first top-15 finish in a major since.
“I’ve played well in U.S. Opens,” Mickelson said. “Even take away the four second-place finishes, and there were a couple other opportunities as well. I think that you adjust as a player, you just adjust to your environment and if you have short tight fairways or narrow fairways with thick rough, you just kind of adjust.”
Scott and Garcia, meanwhile, have gleaned great attention and fanfare for years, but have zero major titles between them.
Garcia, however, did win the next best thing, outlasting Paul Goydos at last month’s Players Championship.
“Definitely, it is definitely a boost of confidence,” he said. “There’s no doubt about that. I guess at the end of the day every tournament is different and winning the Players was great. As I said, it was a big boost of confidence. But I still got to go out there and perform at the U.S. Open and at the British Open and at the PGA and give myself a chance.
“The good thing about it is I know that coming down the stretch my whole game can step up to it. But I still need to get myself in that position. And that’s probably one of the most difficult things.”