Tiger sets Bahama's Aus Open

Tiger Woods greets a huge crowd at the Yarra River in Melbourne today.

Tiger Woods will resist calls to prepare its players for the next year's Presidential Cup at the Australian Open.

Woods, the American captain on a whistle-stop tour through Melbourne to promote the December 2019 tournament at Royal Melbourne, has been criticized for his own charity tournament in the Bahamas in the same week as the national championship at The Australian in Sydney.

Both tournaments are a week before the Presidents Cup, but Woods told a media conference today that the Hero World Challenge would be his recommendation to the US team before the event on December 12-15 in Melbourne.

There is a strong suggestion that the tournament of the Bahamas will be shifted by one day to give the players more time to make the trip to Melbourne.

"My job is to make sure that my boys are prepared, they are still playing and they are fresh in the year," said Woods.

Asked whether he would push his player to the Australian Open (such as Captain Fred Couples in 2011 when the Presidents Cup was in Royal Melbourne), he said: "I hope they play at the Hero World Challenge, which is an obvious But we will see what happens, we have to present some of the logistics things between now and then

"That's one of the reasons I'm here to try and find out." "We've scheduled a few meetings today, trying to get a better plan in the future so we can get the best we can with the hero, and everyone here from the Bahamas to rest in this tournament, prepare them and make sure they are ready to play. "

Woods said that the memory of the only defeat of the Americans in the 24-year history of the Presidents Cup, in Melbourne in 1998, will propel them during the biennial team event.

"Of course Jack (Nicklaus) was our captain, it was late in the year, December, and we did not have the wrap-around schedule that we have now, the guys have taken quite some free time and frankly we were not willing to play and we were smoked. "

The Americans have won 10 of the 12 previous presidential heads in the international team, with the 2003 matches in South Africa right.

Woods spent part of the Wednesday running a junior clinic and paid a visit to Royal Melbourne, which was not surprising, he found almost exactly the same as when he last participated in Melbourne in 2011. He called it "one of the largest golf courses in all of the world" and his love for the Sandbelt courses (he has also participated in Kingston Heath and Victoria) is well documented.

Today he did the rounds of the morning television program & # 39; s and radio programs for a full-scale media conference in the open air next to the Yarra River, where accreditation was needed – a rarity for just an interview opportunity.

The former old world No.1 travels with his partner, Erica Herman and his two children, but rests after a pioneering season on the American PGA Tour where he won for the first time in five years. and after four back operations.

With his resurgence as a player, he will probably play in Royal Melbourne next year, but to qualify automatically, he must be in the top eight of the Tour's list of points at the end of the 2018-19 season. If he is not, there are four & # 39; leads & # 39; of the captain to be added, which means that he can judge himself, an extraordinary situation.

"I am, however, part of the team," he said. "I hope to be part of the top 8. If that is not the case, then myself and my vice-leaders have to think of the next four guys who are best served to be part of this team."