posted May 2, 2007 at 15:44 EST in Golf Articles

May 2-6, 2007

The Tour is fresh off of the Byron Nelson Championship in Texas, where Scott Verplank bested Luke Donald by a stroke for the win. Jerry Kelly, Rory Sabbatini, Phil Mickelson and Ian Poulter finished in a four-way tie for third. Vijay Singh finished seven strokes off the lead in a six-way tie for 13th.

Now, the Tour heads East to North Carolina’s Quail Hollow Club for the fifth offering of the Wachovia Championship. In its brief four-year history, the tournament has finished in a playoff three times.

Jim Furyk lost a three-way playoff here in 2005, but found redemption last year by defeating Trevor Immelman in a playoff to claim the 2006 Wachovia Championship. Adam Scott, Lucas Glover, and Bill Haas rounded out last year’s top-five.

 

Vijay Singh, who won the three-way playoff in 2005 (Sergio Garcia was the third member of that playoff), was the runner-up in 2003 to David Toms – the only year the Championship did not end in a playoff. Singh has finished in the top-10 three of the four times the Championship has been played in Charlotte.

The 2004 tournament presented the third playoff ending. That year, Joey Sindelar bested Arron Oberholser to claim the win.

Heading into Charlotte, the FedEx Cup standings are topped by Singh, followed by Woods, Charles Howell, III, Phil Michelson and John Rollins. They are all entered in this weekend’s field, as are all of the aforementioned past winners. As a consequence, the stage is set for a very competitive outing at Quail Hollow.

Singh has six straight top-20 finishes, including a win at the Arnold Palmer invitational in March. Rollins has three top-five finishes this year, but his 19th-place finish at Lord Byron’s tournament was the best he has done since the end of March. Meanwhile, Sabbatini has finished 2nd (The Masters) and 3rd (Byron Nelson) in his last two outings.

Clearly, though, most eyes will be on Woods. He has entered only five tournaments so far this year and has won two of them (Buick Invitational; World Golf Championships – CA Championship) and tied Sabbatini for 2nd place at The Masters in his last tour stop. Having entered half the tournaments as most other golfers, he is still in 2nd place in the FedEx Cup standings.

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