Tiger Woods deserves Firestone exemption, says Jordan Spieth

Tiger Woods and Firestone go together like, well, Tiger and Torrey, or Tiger and Bay Hill, but the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational show will go on without the 8-time winner for just the 2nd time in Woods’ career.

Tiger Woods has lifted eight of his 79 PGA Tour trophies at Firestone Country Club, which makes his absence from this week’s WGC-Bridgestone Invitational unfathomable to David Feherty.

"Tiger not at Firestone … it’s like a nativity scene without one of the wise men," the golf analyst and wit told Dave Shedloski earlier this week from the site of the final tuneup for the PGA Championship.

Feherty, who believes Woods made progress in his T18 finish last week at the Quicken Loans National (his best close since a T17 at Augusta), was not the only golf watcher to rue the lack of the former world No. 1 at a course he has dominated throughout the years. In fact, Tiger pal and a Bridgestone favorite, Jason Day, pretty much lobbied for WGC organizers to present Woods with a lifetime achievement award for his other-worldly performances on the Akron track.

"You win the bloody tournament eight times, you probably should," Day said on Tuesday about Woods earning his way in through some sort of special exemption for players who have won an event so many times.

"It's kind of weird to not see him playing the events that we're usually used to seeing him playing. This is one of those events that he plays well and wins a lot here," Day observed. "Eight times, it's just amazing to even think about. Some guys are just hoping for one WGC win, let alone eight times at one venue."

Second-ranked Jordan Spieth, the winner of two grand slam events this season, echoed Day's sentiments.

"I’m surprised, given WGC has more impact on world ranking, has more impact on FedEx Cup, has more impact in general, that there isn’t some form of a category like there is for majors," Spieth said on Wednesday from Firestone. "Not even just that it’s this one specifically, but if you win a certain amount of them or whatever -- I mean, I don’t know how they’d do it, but I think that it is a bit surprising."

Woods, himself, did not quite know what to make of the predicament that left him on the outside looking in at those teeing it up this week in Ohio.

"I'm not playing Reno [Barracuda Championship] this week or Bridgestone, which is kind of interesting because I've won Bridgestone, what, eight times and I'm not eligible. I didn't qualify," he said during Monday’s media day promoting next month’s Deutsche Bank Championship. "You get into those big events by winning golf tournaments. Fortunately enough, I've won the PGA a few times and I'm going to be able to play in that event."

But not the Bridgestone, thanks to his plummeting from the top of the world rankings to his current 262nd place. Thursday’s start to the contest will mark just the second time in his career that Woods will have missed the Firestone tilt, after injury kept him out of the competition in 2008.

And while Woods noted that there was no complex formula to getting into the DBC and the other three FedEx Cup playoff games ("Just win" at Whistling Straits), doing so on a course that has been his stomping grounds over the years has not been the easiest of feats of late.

Woods has won at Torrey Pines and Bay Hill eight times each as well, and has earned seven titles at Doral. Even such personal playgrounds, though, have not been kind to the 14-time major champion recently as he struggles to regain a semblance of his old form.

Here’s how Tiger has fared in the past two years at three venues he had previously conquered:

Torrey Pines (Farmers Insurance Open)

• 2014 — first 54-hole missed cut of his career
• 2015 — Withdrawal

Bay Hill (Arnold Palmer Invitational)

• 2014 — Did not play
• 2015 — DNP

Doral (WGC-Cadillac Championship)

• 2014 — T25
• 2015 — DNP

Despite his illustrious history at Firestone, recent results illustrate that no one knows how Tiger would have done this week, but Feherty, for one, will miss watching him bid for a record ninth victory.

"It’s extraordinary to watch him at his best, and it’s equally extraordinary when he’s at the bottom," Feherty said. "He never does anything more than about 8,000 percent."

This week, as Day tees it up with Rickie Fowler in the first two rounds at Firestone, and Jordan Spieth tries to topple an injured Rory McIlroy from his No. 1 world ranking throne, Woods will likely be giving 8,000 percent to honing his eye-foot coordination with daughter Sam and son Charlie.

"All I do these days is play soccer with my kids," Tiger said last week. "That’s all I do, run, run, run around playing soccer."