Ever wonder what clubs Tiger Woods using when he is competing for golf championships around the world?  Here is what Tiger had in his bag when he was in the 2007 PGA Championship.  We have his whole lineup from golf drivers to putting iron.

Driver: Nike SasQuatch Tour 460cc (8.5°)
Fairway Wood: Nike SasQuatch II (15°)
Irons: Nike Forged Irons (2-PW)
Wedges: Nike Pro Combo SW (56°) and SV LW (60°)
Putter: Scott Cameron by Titleist Studio Stainless Newport II (35 inches)
Ball: Nike One Platinum prototype (only 1s with TIGER on them)

I guess it pays sometimes to invest in thousands of dollars worth of top of the line equipment.

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Tiger Woods’ Golfing Bag

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The pair is knotted at 16-under 200 and is four clear at Doral Resort and Spa.

Jeev Milkha Singh (68) and Camilo Villegas (69) share third place at minus-12.

Tiger Woods, playing his first stroke-play event since knee surgery after last year’s epic U.S. Open victory, posted a four-under 68 and moved into a tie for 19th at seven-under 209.

Woods’ story on Saturday was that of a balky putter. He missed several chances inside 10 feet and things like that have kept him out of contention so far this week.

“I hit it great today. I hit it the best I’ve hit it in a long time,” said Woods, a six-time former champion. “Unfortunately, I’m just not making any putts.”

Woods birdied the first, but missed an eight-footer for birdie at No. 5. He rolled in a 12-foot birdie putt at the ninth to reach five-under par for the championship, well behind the leaders.

The world No. 1 two-putted for birdie at the par-five 10th, but missed another short one for birdie at 12. Woods got a short one to fall at 14, then hit a terrible approach into a bunker at 16.

When the putter wasn’t working, Woods decided to make birdies in a different fashion. He holed his bunker shot at the 16th for a birdie, but hit the lip of a fairway bunker en route to bogey one hole later.

Woods hit a spectacular, hooking second shot with a three-iron to 16 feet at the famed Blue Monster 18th, but his birdie putt stayed above ground.

Despite being out of the tournament, barring a miraculous comeback, Woods feels he’s improving with every round played.

“I’m getting better each day, the feel of playing in the game again at this level is coming back,” said Woods. “Ball-striking-wise, very happy with how things are progressing. Unfortunately I’m just not getting it done on the greens.”

Woods, as well as the whole field, will need to get it done on the greens if he’s to catch the co-leaders.

For Mickelson, he will be in search of his 36th PGA Tour victory, but his first in an individual WGC competition.

“It would be a really cool thing to do that,” said Mickelson, referring to his first WGC win.

But for Watney, this win would be much more. He has a pair of tour wins, including this year’s Buick Invitational, but has never performed on this kind of stage.

“Pretty sure if you told anyone on Thursday morning before we teed off that this is the situation, I would take it in a heartbeat,” admitted Watney. “I’m looking forward to the challenge.”

The challenge basically comes from Mickelson alone. The four-stroke cushion certainly does not eliminate all from contention, but the co-leaders will have an up-close seat to the action at the top the leaderboard.

“I think at some point, if we stay out ahead, I think it will turn into a one- on-one situation,” acknowledged Watney. “At this point, there are so many holes to play and so much can happen that I don’t think it’s match-play just yet.”

Mickelson began the round with a two-shot lead, but Watney erased that at the fourth. Mickelson found water and Watney hit his tee shot to 13 feet. Mickelson made bogey, while Watney poured in his third consecutive birdie to join Mickelson atop the leaderboard.

Watney grabbed the lead at the turn after Mickelson three-putted the seventh green for a bogey. Both missed easy birdie tries from inside seven feet at nine, but the duo was even again after Watney made a mess of the 11th. It was his first bogey of the championship, but it opened the door for Mickelson.

Mickelson knocked his third to 10 feet at the par-five 12th and appeared to be in good shape for birdie. Watney drained his 20-footer for birdie first, but Mickelson answered and the two remained tied.

Mickelson hit a beautiful five-iron that rolled up to the hole, hit the flagstick and ran another foot. He should’ve had an ace, but settled for a birdie and a one-shot lead after Watney made a nice save from the bunker.

At the 14th, Mickelson converted a six-footer for his third birdie in a row. He was two ahead, but Watney pulled within one thanks to a 12-foot birdie effort. Mickelson was a foot closer with his birdie chance, but his putt lipped out of the left side.

Mickelson hit a horrendous drive at 17 and had to battle with a gigantic tree in front of him. His second found the fairway, but he hit a poor third 32 feet from the cup. Mickelson missed the par save and made bogey, which tied the two at minus-16.

Both hammered drives down the 18th fairway, but Watney hit his second long and left, safely avoiding the water. Mickelson’s approach stopped 15 feet from the flag. After a free drop, Watney chipped to two feet. Mickelson missed his birdie try and the two tapped in for pars and the 54-hole lead.

“Nick’s playing very good golf, hitting the ball very well,” said Mickelson. “I think he’s going to be very difficult to get past tomorrow because he’s playing so good.”

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Mickelson and Watney tied for CA Championship lead

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KAPALUA, Hawaii — For the last decade, professional golf’s opening day has come here on the island of Maui, a mountainous tropical setting in the Pacific far from the cold-fingered, overlapping grip of winter. The comfortable constancy remains in place this year as 33 PGA Tour winners from 2008 tee off Thursday in the 2009 Mercedes Championship on the Plantation Course at Kapalua Resort above Honolua Bay.

But bubbling like lava beneath the familiar feel and collegial vibe of the $5.6 million event is an undercurrent of change, a surge of youthful energy that has raised much anticipation for the new year. Among the 12 newcomers who have crashed the exclusive winners-only party at Kapalua are two golfers with star power — Anthony Kim and Colombia’s Camilo Villegas — who have enough game and mettle to be mentioned as potential challengers to the world’s No. 1 golfer, Tiger Woods.

With Woods out of action until at least March rehabbing his knee, Kim, 23, and Villegas, 27, will have the chance to further validate the two ’08 Tour victories each of them had during Woods’s absence.

Further fueling speculation is that neither is shrinking from the opportunity. Each holds Woods and his achievements in high regard; neither is intimidated by his greatness.

“I think there’s a lot of things I can learn from him,” said Kim, who already has modeled his pretournament routine after Woods’s. “And who knows, I’m not going to put any limits on myself. I don’t want to say that I can’t be great one day, but I still have to put in the work.”

The lean and powerful Villegas has the confident mien of a fighter who knows he is fast and is not afraid to prove it. When he finally began holing some putts at the end of last season, he won twice in succession during the Playoffs for FedEx Cup, taking the BMW Championship and Tour Championship to break through in his fourth year on the tour.

“It’s just maybe changes that are this big,” Villegas said, pinching thumb and index finger together. “And then you are feeling a little bit more confidence. It’s a little bit of everything. You make more putts and you feel more confident, and all of a sudden you put less pressure on your ball-striking and you start hitting the ball a little bit better.

“So you go, a little, a little, a little and then you get a couple wins.”

Villegas and Kim are not kidding themselves into believing that Woods will be anything but his old self when he returns, probably in March. Woods said two weeks ago that he was ahead of schedule on his rehab, that he was hitting full shots and expecting the knee to be better than it has been in years.

But a couple of wins is a couple of wins, and though Kim has never finished higher than Woods at a tournament, he has at least won Woods’s tournament, the AT&T National. And he performed well at an off-season clinic, during which he hit shots for Woods while Woods described the ball flight. His only embarrassing moment came when he guessed that Woods’s major championship total was eight instead of 14.

“I’m not a huge golf fan,” Kim said, laughing, “so I don’t know all the stats. I really thought he had won about eight majors and he told me he won 14. I didn’t know that.

“Obviously, he’s the best player in the world and nobody is taking that away from him right now. I’m going to do my best to keep grinding and working toward that goal.”

Veterans on the tour have noticed just how hard Kim, Villegas and other young players such as Sergio Garcia, Andres Romero, Adam Scott and Hunter Mahan are working. Ernie Els, who is back at the Mercedes Championship after a three-year absence, was once a young gun on the tour. He won the United States Open in 1994 at age 24.

Now 39 and in the process of regaining his form after a series of injuries, Els looks at the young players and sees a trend.

“I was that age, and you come through and you want to run through walls,” he said. “You don’t care how you’re going to win, and that’s what’s happening now. It’s just a change of the guard, basically.”

If it is, it is only the beginning. When García, 28, took over as No. 2 in the world in November, he got as close to Woods as he has ever been. Neither is here this week to change that, nor is No. 3 Phil Mickelson or No. 4 Padraig Harrington. When he returns, Woods is likely to be in his customary and comfortable position atop the world rankings, where he has reigned for the last 185 weeks.

According to Golf World, of the nine players who have risen to the No. 2 position since Woods first assumed the top spot in June of 1997, Vijay Singh is the only one to have ousted Woods for longer than 15 weeks. Singh ended Woods’s 264-week hold on No. 1 in September of 2004 and remained No. 1 for 32 weeks

Since regaining the top spot in June 2005, Woods has stiff-armed the world. But the severity of his knee injury and the seven months he will have been away has put the faint smell of blood in the water for the first time in a long time. Though the young guns have not yet circled Tiger Woods, they have at least picked up the scent.

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During his Injury, Woods Has New Challengers on the Tee

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The tour announced five tournaments – down from seven this year – that will be played after the FedEx Cup ends and give players a chance to finish in the top-125 on the money list to retain their cards.

Gone from the Fall Series schedule is the Ginn sur Mer Classic, which was held the penultimate week of the season and was not expected to return because of the real estate crisis. Also missing from the fall is the Valero Texas Open, which moved to the spring to replace the defunct Atlanta tournament.

The Fall Series starts at Turning Stone the week after the FedEx Cup finale, then takes a week off because of the Presidents Cup, which will be held Oct. 8-11 in San Francisco. The series resumes in Las Vegas and Phoenix, then moves to Mississippi and Florida, ending Nov. 15 at Disney World, as it did this year.

The tour still is trying to create a tournament the week before Disney that would be played on Sea Island, Ga. Those negotiations were one reason the fall schedule was not released until two days before Christmas.

If the ’09 schedule stays the way it is, there will be 46 tournaments (down from 48) with a US$100,000 increase in total prize money. That doesn’t include the majors, which have not released their purses for 2009.

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PGA Tour offering fewer tournaments in its 2009 fall schedule

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Tiger Woods has one of the Hottest Wives of Any Pro Sports Athlete

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