Tiger Woods gets serious about Ryder Cup

Last week, Tiger Woods said he had a million reasons why he wanted to win the World Golf Championship. He came up with another one Tuesday.

"I was just trying to be funny," Woods said. "Obviously, things were taken way out of context."

Woods led wire-to-wire in winning the $1 million check for his victory in the American Express Championship in Ireland.

But funny or not, this week's Ryder Cup, postponed for a year by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, is no laughing matter.

The Americans again are favored to win the three-day, match-play competition, somewhat of a mystery since Europe has won five of the past eight times.

The Ryder Cup has not been particularly kind to Woods, either. One of the glaring holes in an otherwise awesome career is his 3-6-1 mark in two Ryder Cups.

"I wish it was better," he said. "That means I would have contributed more points to my team. But I haven't done that."

He spent his first night at The Belfry playing table tennis and said he believes the U.S. team had bonded.

For 51 weeks a year, Woods is the No. 1 player in the world and the man everyone is trying to beat. At the Ryder Cup, he is one of 12 players on a team. Will he play any different?

"I think anybody would be hard-pressed to say that man is not trying to win every time he puts a tee in the ground," Hal Sutton said. "I think there's more reason for him to want to win the Ryder Cup and do well in it, because that's one of the few times he hasn't done as well. I'm pretty sure his juices will be flowing this week."

Woods acknowledged as much. "They're two completely different animals," he said. "You're a lot more juiced on the first tee here than you are in a normal tour event, just because if you get off to a bad start you can lose a match. You get off to a bad start in a tournament, you can still win."

All signs indicate that Woods will be paired with Mark Calcavecchia in foursomes, and David Duval and perhaps Sutton are likely partners for Woods in fourball. Woods and Calcavecchia practiced together Tuesday, and both their games and their personalities mesh. Both are long hitters who like to attack par-5 holes, and who can make birdies in bunches.

In other practice pairings, Paul Azinger was with Stewart Cink, Duval was with Davis Love III, Phil Mickelson was with David Toms, Jim Furyk was with Scott Hoch, and Sutton was with Scott Verplank. For the Europeans, Thomas Bjorn practiced with Darren Clarke, Colin Montgomerie with Lee Westwood, Niclas Fasth with Padraig Harrington, Pierre Fulke with Phillip Price, Sergio Garcia with Bernhard Langer, and Paul McGinley with Jesper Parnevik.