No Tiger, no problem for the field

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Count U.S. Open runner-up Rocco Mediate among those looking forward to the challenging course at this week’s AT&T National at Congressional Country Club in Montgomery County.

“It’s not about making nine birdies a day here,” Mediate said. “It’s about making a fewer birdies and minimizing the mistakes and making it a championship golf course.”

K.J. Choi won last year’s event, finishing 9-under par for a three-shot victory over Steve Stricker. But with high rough and tricky greens, the winning score on Sunday figures to be less than that total as golfers get set to tee off today in the first of four challenging rounds.

And Mediate welcomes the enhanced level of difficulty.

“I seriously love to play golf courses like that three times a month where par means something,” he said. “We all might be completely crazy after a year of that, because it does wear. But I think this kind of golf course, I love these more than the ones you’ve got to shoot 22-under par to win.”

The biggest story of the next few days, however, is not about who is on the course, but rather who is off of it. Tiger Woods, the reigning PGA Tour Golfer of the Year who has won 11 of the past 22 events he has entered is out for the year following a reagrivation of a knee he had surgically repaired following his win at last month’s U.S. Open, which represents his 14th major victory.

“Missing this week being the host of the event, of the AT&T National, it’s very disappointing,” Woods said during a conference call. “Being laid up here and watching it on TV is really no fun. But those are the cards right now, and I just have to deal with it.”

The absence of Woods is an even bigger blow to the tournament itself, which the transcendent golfer hosts. Without Woods, who finished sixth in the event last year at 2-under par, it remains to be seen if the tournament can match last year’s attendance mark of 139,389, which included two days of events prior to the four-day tournament.

But some golfers are looking at no Woods as a chance to sink their claws into a victory.

“This is a major-style course,” Steve Stricker, who along with Choi are the only golfers in the World Golf Ranking’s Top 10 in the field, said. “Obviously we’ve had PGA’s here and U.S. Opens here. It’s set up like a major here this week. You know, the rough isn’t quite as bad as it was last year. It’s a little softer than it was last year but other than that, it will test you in every aspect of your game.

“You have to drive it in the fairway. The greens are difficult. A lot of them slope from back to front, if you get on the wrong side, you’re in trouble.”

dcarey@baltimoreexaminer.com

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