Big tournament for Tiger, Kostis says

Tiger Woods teed off at 1:25 p.m. today in the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow in Charlotte, N.C., and Peter Kostis of CBS Sports sees this as a big week for Woods.

"If you take Bay Hill, where he won, and the Masters, where he played poorly, this week is kind of a rubber match," Kostis sad in a CBS e-mail. "It’s the rubber game of the three-game series to determine, in a lot of people’s eyes, which tournament was an aberration. Was it Bay Hill or was it Augusta? If he plays well this week, then Augusta was an aberration and his recovery is continuing on course. If he doesn’t play well, then his detractors especially are going to say that Bay Hill was a fluke.

"So, I consider this week to be very important for Tiger to continue his progress. But, in this day-and-age of instant analysis, it’s going to be the rubber game of the match and people will form their opinions whether he is making progress or he’s regressing.”

 Woods finished tied for 70th at Augusta National, with his lowest round a 72.

Woods will compete against five of the top 10 players in the world rankings and 20 of the top 30 in the FedExCup standfings.

"It’s a phenomenal field," Kostis said. "That’s a testament to (Quail Hollow Club President) Johnny Harris, Charlotte, and Quail Hollow. Hopefully we get the Tigers and the McIlroys, theWestwoods, and the Mickelsons in the battle on Sunday. That’s what people want to see.

"People are a little bit aggravated with the World No.1 ranking changing while one player is sitting home taking a week off. They want to see the battle mano-a-mano. Hopefully this weekend we will get the big names competing. But, also what tends to generally happen where you see all these great players, you wind up with somebody who is a rookie or non-winner right there in the hunt."