History beckons -- if Woods can reverse Riviera fortunes

Tiger Woods's rich history at Riviera Country Club includes almost everything but a victory -- something the US superstar hopes to change with a landmark win this week.

Woods gets his second crack at a record-setting 83rd US PGA Tour title on the course where he made his first US PGA Tour start as a 16-year-old in 1992.

At Torrey Pines in January, Woods insisted breaking the great Sam Snead's record -- which he matched with an 82nd career title at the Zozo Championship in October -- was the last thing on his mind.

But at Riviera, Woods can feel history beckoning.

"It has been mentioned," he said with a grin.

Woods missed the cut in that first Riviera outing in 1992, when he played on a sponsor's exemption.

His fortunes haven't improved that much on the classic course tucked into the Pacific Palisades west of downtown Los Angeles, although the venue where he played as a youngster, and turned out to watch the pros he would someday join, holds many memories.

"This was the second professional event I ever went to besides San Diego, coming up here and watching the guys play," Woods said Tuesday as he prepared to tee it up in the Genesis Invitational, the tournament he hosts for the benefit of his TGR Foundation.

"It was the coolest thing," added Woods, who recalled a year he raced to the eighth green to watch Tom Watson play and for his pains got pushed out of the way to allow Watson to play a shot from off the green.

"I'm standing looking at the golf ball. He comes over and says, 'Move out of the way, kid,' and pushes me out of the way.

"So I'm out on tour telling him this story and he says, 'Well, you were in the way.' "So for me to have experiences like that here at Riv and to have now this be my event -- hopefully on Sunday we'll be having this discussion a little bit more."
- Hit it well -
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"But when it comes right down to it, you've got to hit the ball well here because the greens are so small and they're so slopey."
"Bending, twisting, turning, moving," the 44-year-old said of what movements give him trouble in the wake of multiple spinal surgeries. "Other than that, I'm all good."