In a sense, two players are defending titles at Doral in Miami this week, and one of them is defending twice. Confused? Well, you’re not alone. The FedEx Cup inspired changes to the PGA Tour schedule have had spectators, press, and players scratching their heads all year. Take Stephen Ames, one of this week’s “defenders.” It was precisely a year ago that the Canadian citizen (by way of Trinidad and Tobago) beat Retief Goosen by six shots to win the Players Championship at the TPC of Sawgrass. But his defense of the tour’s showcase event is still another seven weeks away. “I guess that feels a little weird,” Ames said last week.

The man with two tournaments on the line is, of course, Tiger Woods, who won the WGC-CA Championship in England at the start of October last year when it went by another name — the WGC American Express Championship (just to add to the confusion) — and also last season’s Ford Championship, the last PGA Tour event to be played on the Miami resort’s Blue Monster Course, in which the world no. 1 edged out David Toms and Camillo Villegas by a single stroke. He also won the Ford here in 2005 after going head to head with Phil Mickelson in the final round.

Those two wins, a second-place finish, and a tie for ninth from his four appearances on the worldrenowned, Dick Wilson design that Ray Floyd beefed up in 1996, demonstrate that Tiger’s mojo obviously works as well here as it does at just about every other venue in the world, and it’s unlikely a change to the putting surfaces that, last fall, saw the original Bermuda turf replaced with TifEagle will make him feel any less comfortable.

The firmer, quicker greens on a weekend when high winds are expected to dry the surfaces out will hold only well-struck shots and will surely improve his chances of hoisting a 13th WGC trophy from 24 attempts — his 56th PGA Tour title.

What might make him slightly uncomfortable, however, are memories of his surprisingly erratic finish at last week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational where the reappearance of that destructive dip in his downswing and what he described yesterday as a few poor club selections resulted in 43 strokes for the final nine holes and a tie for 22nd after he threatened the lead briefly following two birdies to open his final round.

But Tiger doesn’t let the odd poor performance keep him down for long. After missing the cut at the 2005 EDS Byron Nelson Classic, he reeled off seven top-four finishes in a row, a sequence that included two wins. And after failing to make it to the weekend at last year’s U.S. Open, he played in seven official tournaments the rest of the year, winning six of them. No doubt Tiger will be looking to rectify last week’s malfunction.

Course setup at Doral is likely to be similar to what the players encountered at Bay Hill, and indeed elsewhere in Florida, where long, thick rough has caused a pronounced drop in winning scores and cut lines compared with previous years. Doral’s 2.5 inch Bermuda rough will feel like five inches of bluegrass, says course superintendent Juan Gutierrez. The weather which looks to replicating conditions that lulled players into a false sense of security last week when rain softened the greens for Thursday’s and Friday ‘s rounds but significant winds sent scores spiraling upward during the weekend, should also be a major factor.

Firm greens, malevolent rough, and blustery conditions should put an end to the mauling Woods and others have inflicted on the Blue Monster in recent years. Since 2000, its fearsome reputation has more or less collapsed under a hail of birdies — and an average winning total of 19.33 under par. “It was actually quite a sedate test of golf last year,” Englishman David Howell said on Tuesday.

This year, however, players will need to hit considerably more than the 46.4% of fairways that Woods managed in both 2005 and 2006. To have any chance at all, in fact, the winner will probably need to equal, or perhaps better, the 68.25% that the Florida Swing’s three winners have found thus far. Even Vijay Singh, who averaged 59.4% last year, hit over 71% at Bay Hill.

And how about that Vijay Singh? With two wins already this season and the top spot in the FedEx Cup standings, he is, at 44, as eager as ever to give Woods a run for his money. He hasn’t won at Doral in 11 attempts, but he has finished in the top five on five occasions. The Fijian is striking the ball as well as ever after making some minor adjustments to his swing at the tail end of 2006, and has looked solid on the greens after reverting to the belly putter (currently 14th in putting stats). Ernie Els, who won here in 2002 seems to be adapting well to his new Callaway clubs and is surely ready to break out of a funk that hasn’t seen him win on the PGA Tour since claiming this title in Ireland at the end of 2004. Jim Furyk is back from wrist surgery and will be looking to add to a decent record at this course, including a win at the Doral-Ryder Open in 2000 when he shot 23 under par. And Sergio Garcia will win just as soon as he quits decelerating his putter so noticeably on Sunday afternoons.

They and the rest of the 74-man field, which includes the world’s top 50 ranked players and a handful of unknowns from various professional tours around the world, will be banking on another noshow from the real Tiger Woods this week, but chances are they won’t get it. Woods is never more dangerous that when he has a point to prove, and you can bet he and Hank Haney have done whatever was necessary to debug his swing. “Oh yeah, I made some silly mistakes [at Bay Hill] and hit some bad shots” he said yesterday. “But I’ve definitely fixed it.”

tonydear71@comcast.net