Woods has emotional days ahead at Winged Foot

MAMARONECK, N.Y. -- One of Tiger Woods' greatest thrills was winning on Father's Day.

It was a tradition in the Woods' household when he was young. The son would play 18 holes with his father at Navy Golf Course in Long Beach, Calif., then they would go home to watch the conclusion of the U.S. Open.

"Father's Day was actually a pretty cool day," Woods said Tuesday. "I would always try to beat my dad on the golf course, then come back home and catch the back nine of the U.S. Open. That's usually how it worked when I was growing up."

It didn't always work out in his favor. He didn't always win.

Oh, but he tried, as he does now.

The U.S. Open always ends on Father's Day, an occasion that rarely has taken on such significance in the days leading up to this major.

Woods is coming off a nine-week break from golf, the longest of his career. He hasn't hit a meaningful shot since Sunday afternoon at Augusta National when he finished three shots behind Phil Mickelson in the Masters. Earl Woods -- his father, best friend, teacher and role model -- died a month later of cancer at age 74.

Emotions are sure to be running high if Woods finds himself in contention on the back nine Sunday at Winged Foot, a scenario that will be difficult to ignore with a Nike commercial that begins airing this week.

Set to the music of The Zombies ("This Will Be Our Year"), the commercial shows some two dozen pictures and video clips of Woods and his father, some of them on the golf course, one scene of Earl Woods hitting balls into a net in their garage as Tiger sits in a chair waiting his turn, twirling a club in his hands.

"To Dad, and fathers everywhere," is the message at the end of the 30-second spot.

Woods said the commercial was in the works well before his father took a turn for the worse over the Christmas holidays and never improved, and that it was a tribute to "make sure all fathers are recognized and appreciated."

His personal tribute is not so much to win, but to compete, which is all his father ever asked.

"I'm here to compete and play and try to win this championship," he said, his first time speaking to reporters since his father died. "I know that Dad would still want me to go out there and grind and give it my best, and that's what I always do. That's what I will certainly try to do this week."

Woods was on the first tee at Winged Foot as the sun was just beginning to climb over the tree-lined fairways. Swing coach Hank Haney said something that made him laugh so hard that he was still smiling over a 6-iron that never left the flag and settled 12 feet from the cup. A few holes later, a fan with a motor-driven camera set off a series of clicks in his back swing. Woods backed off and glared, hooked his 3-wood into the rough and cursed the cameras under his breath.

That part hasn't changed.

What to expect when the U.S. Open begins Thursday remains to be seen.

"It's his first one back for a long and time, and it's going to be hard for him because of his father passing away," defending champion Michael Campbell said. "We obviously feel for Tiger. I believe he's going to benefit from it. He's going to say, 'Look, he's still with me, not in the physical space but somehow connected,' so it's going to empower him somehow more than anything else."'

Mickelson, trying to join Woods as the only players in the last 50 years to win three straight majors, still views him as the man to beat. Lefty was asked for his perspective on how hard it is to play a U.S. Open without being tournament-tested in more than two months.

"What was Tiger's answer?" he said. "Does he feel like it was a problem? I'm hoping he does."

Once the laughter subsided, Mickelson offered a more serious assessment.

"I've never seen a tournament where he has not been prepared to win, unfortunately," he said. "I would expect him to be 100 percent because he's had a lot of time now to work on his game and get sharp and focus in on just this one tournament. I think he's going to be very sharp this week."

And history is on Woods' side, although certainly not at this venue.

Woods didn't touch a club for a month during the Christmas holidays, when he spent most of his time in California with his father. He took a six-week break from tournament golf, and returned to win the Buick Invitational. Three years ago, he missed eight weeks recovering from knee surgery and won the Buick Invitational in his first start.

But that's his home course on the PGA Tour, one that doesn't have 6-inch rough and severely contoured greens.

The Buick Invitational is no U.S. Open.

The hard part for Woods was simply putting a club in his hand. He went "well over a month" without so much as hitting a ball, and had no timetable to return until he was ready. Emotionally, the burden of memories turned into a blessing.

"One of the hardest things for me, in all honesty, was to get back to the game of golf because a lot of my memories -- great memories that I have with my dad -- are at the golf course," he said. "Any time you take time off and start back, you always work on your fundamental -- grip, posture, stance, alignment. Well, that's what I learned from Dad. So from that standpoint, it was a little more difficult than I had expected.

"Then again," he said, breaking into a smile, "it brought back so many great memories. As I was grinding and getting ready, it was also one of the great times to remember all the lessons -- life lessons -- Dad taught me."

He now tries to put those lessons to work again. They have carried him to 48 victories and 10 major championships. And the biggest lesson is to block out everything around him -- watching his father's health deteriorate, standing at his grave site, tending to his mother in the weeks after the funeral -- and chart his way around a U.S. Open course.

"I'm there to compete, I'm there to win the tournament, and all my energy is going toward that," Woods said. "We've gone through a lot already. Hitting a golf ball around like this is actually the easy part."