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Tiger Woods trails his Presidents Cup captain’s pick Patrick Reed by six with two rounds to go in the 18-player Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas.
Woods shot a second-round 66 at the Albany Golf Club on Thursday but remains cryptic on how much he will play as the captain of next week’s Presidents Cup team.
He has to be pleased with how Reed is playing. And putting. Reed has opened up a three-stroke lead over Gary Woodland and his second-round 66 included just 23 putts, a day after recording 25.
But as Woods — and others — eye a tournament victory this week, he’s also prepping 10 of the 11 guys he’ll take with him to Royal Melbourne next week.
“We have some things that we need to run through the guys, some ideas and I’ll pick their brains a little bit,” he said after Wednesday’s opening round. “We just want to have a clear picture of what we’re going to do down there because obviously once we get down there, things roll pretty quickly.”
Woods went on to describe the tight schedule in Australia.
“We land there Monday, we don’t have a whole lot of time to get to the golf course on Monday. A few of us gotta go do a shootout on the river. Then dinner. Then the next day it’s a long practice round. Six guys gotta do interviews, (then there’s) a gala dinner that night.
“Follow the next day with another practice round, photos, plus six more guys have to do interviews. Pairings, and then we play. So there isn’t a whole lot of time. We gotta run through things now so that when we get there we have a clear picture of what we’re doing.”
The Presidents Cup action starts Thursday, Dec. 12, with the first-round four-ball format. Since Melbourne is 16 hours ahead of the East Coast, there will be live golf in prime time starting on Wednesday night in North America.
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