He Has the Playoff System

In his open-air office at the driving range Tuesday morning at Riviera Country Club, Tiger Woods whacked a golf ball, then took a couple of steps back. He was checking out the data compiled by a launch monitor machine at his feet, plugged into a convoy of wires and cables.

Woods craned his neck to peer into a laptop computer. Displayed on the screen was such information as launch angle, spin rate, side spin and ball speed. Woods studied the details intently.

Then he whacked another ball and another, each time retreating to the laptop to read the numbers.

But even as the high-tech world of professional golf rotates around launch monitors, titanium, movable weights, composite materials and toaster-sized club heads, the most powerful factor might not involve numbers or technology, but a name.

“When Tiger’s name is on that board, people wake up,” Tom Watson said. “The presence is known. The presence is there.”

Two tournaments into the year for Woods and he already has two victories, both of them in playoffs, a scenario in which the strong survive and where it’s often as beneficial to be lucky as good.

Playoffs are Tiger’s playpen. Beginning with his one-hole playoff victory over Davis Love III at the 1996 Las Vegas Invitational, Woods is 14-2 in playoffs. In playoffs on the PGA Tour, Woods is 9-1, a success rate built on, well, what exactly?

“I think it’s a lot of luck, really, to be honest,” Woods said. “I’ve had circumstances where I’ve won them and also circumstances where guys have made mistakes and I may end up winning that way.

“I’ve always felt comfortable in a playoff atmosphere because, let me put it this way -- it’s like hitting a putt. Either it’s going to go in or it’s not. Either you’re going to win or not win. There’s only one of two circumstances that are going to happen. So it’s kind of a neat rush.”

Chances are there will be no playoff, involving Woods or anyone else, this week at the $5.1-million Nissan Open, which starts Thursday at Riviera. But if there is a playoff and Woods finds himself involved, once again deciding one of two circumstances, it wouldn’t be much of an upset if you judge his start to the year.

The last week of January, he won the Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines when Jose Maria Olazabal missed a four-foot putt to bogey the second hole of a playoff. Woods two-putted for par. A week later, Woods won the Dubai Desert Classic when Ernie Els hit a bad drive on the first playoff hole, then knocked his second shot into the water. Woods again won with a par.

Woods also beat Els in playoffs at the 1998 Johnnie Walker Classic and at the 2000 Mercedes Championships.

Woods has won two of his 10 major championships in playoffs.

He defeated Bob May in a three-hole playoff to win the 2000 PGA Championship at Valhalla in Louisville, Ky., and last year, birdied the first playoff hole at Augusta National to defeat Chris DiMarco at the Masters.

DiMarco said the Woods mystique is real.

“I don’t think it ever left,” he said. “I think Tiger, when he’s on top of his game, what he has is a drive and a will to win like no other. It’s unbelievable. It’s amazing to watch him all week in San Diego and he’s 50 yards [off line] over here and 40 yards over here and he still has a putt on the 18th hole and wins. How does this happen?

“And in Dubai, he’s lifting it off the rocks and making bogey, but he finds a way to win.”

Mark O’Meara says that Woods’ success in playoffs gives him an edge.

“His power and his willingness to try to figure out a way to get the job done, that’s what he’s certainly very good at,” O’Meara said.

Woods has been so uniformly successful in playoffs that his sole loss -- other than a five-hole loss to Nick Price in an unofficial event in South Africa in 1998 -- was eight years ago at the Nissan Open at Valencia Country Club.

The only player to beat Woods in a playoff at an official tournament? That distinction belongs to Billy Mayfair.

“It’s a neat thing when they bring it up, in TV or the papers, but I kind of laugh about it,” Mayfair said. “I’ve only won one time since and Tiger has won, what, 50 or 60? So I guess I’m the answer to a trivia question.

“Look, I was very proud, but not because I beat Tiger. I was just proud to beat anybody.”

Woods lost because he missed the fairway with his drive, didn’t hit his chip close enough to the hole and missed a 15-foot putt for birdie. Mayfair won with a safe drive, a wedge to six feet and a birdie putt. He remembers as if it were yesterday.

“Beating Tiger was a big deal because everybody told me it was,” he said. “I was in the whole moment of the thing, but now I’ve got perspective.”

Woods naturally gets more attention for his playoff perspective because of his stature, but he has been beaten in extra holes and Robert Allenby hasn’t. In fact, Allenby won the 2001 Nissan Open in a six-way playoff in the rain with Toshi Izawa, Brandel Chamblee, Bob Tway, Jeff Sluman and Dennis Paulson.

Allenby, who is 3-0 in playoffs on the PGA Tour, beat Bubba Watson in December to win the Australian Masters. He said he has a method, but it’s something he prefers to keep to himself.

“I’m not going to tell anyone,” he said. “I can’t give my secret out, otherwise someone might steal it.

“Look, seriously, you leave everything behind, you have one last chance to win the tournament because you didn’t quite get it done in the first place. You have a second chance and you go for it. I’ve been very fortunate, very lucky, every time so far.”

Woods said he relies on his experience as a junior in match play to help him out in playoffs, which are essentially nothing more than match play.

He said that playoffs can hinge on a single shot or a series of shots. They can be short or long and they can be settled by birdies, bogeys, good luck or daunting misfortune.

And so far this year for Woods, both tournaments he has played have gone his way in playoffs, possibly because, after all the examinations, he’s winning them with something no launch monitor can measure.

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Something extra

Tiger Woods in playoffs (He is 14-2 overall, 9-1 on PGA Tour):

2 Majors won by playoff -- the 2000 PGA Championship over Bob May, and the 2005 Masters over Chris DiMarco.

3 Playoffs lost by Ernie Els -- the 1998 Johnnie Walker Classic, the 2000 Mercedes Championships and the 2006 Dubai Desert Classic -- the only golfer to meet Woods in a playoff more than once.

4 Number of PGA Tour playoffs won by shooting par.

5 Number of PGA Tour playoffs won by making birdie.

7 Number of holes in longest playoff, a victory over Jim Furyk in the 2001 WGC NEC Invitational

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NISSAN OPEN

Thursday-Sunday at Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades