It’s a shame the international, with its funky stableford-type scoring format and superb venue, was dropped from the PGA Tour schedule in February, but to be honest the only place they’re still griping about it is in Colorado. Its replacement, the AT&T national, which starts today at Congressional CC 10 miles northwest of downtown Washington, D.C., in the suburb of bethesda, is an even more mouthwatering prospect given its superior field (five of the world’s top six are playing, whereas the international used to get a couple in the top 10 in a good year), the fact that it is being played in the nation’s capital on the Fourth of July weekend and that, with the world’s best player acting as host, it is one of Tiger Woods’s two new babies.

It’s ironic, perhaps, that the man behind this exciting new event was largely responsible for the unfortunate demise of the international following his eight-year absence, but few are lamenting its passing, least of all the 30,000 military personnel who have been granted free admission to Congressional this week.

Woods is the son of a former green beret, a lieutenant-colonel who served in Vietnam and in whose honor Tiger named yesterday’s Pro-Am. Earl Woods would certainly have been proud with the recognition and compassion his son is showing servicemen this week with a list of benefits ranging from those free tickets to designated bleacher seats, the thrill of introducing players on the first and 10th tees, and the opportunity for 52 soldiers to caddy for PGA Tour players at the seventh hole yesterday.

Also part of the proceedings yesterday was President George H.W. Bush who hit a ceremonial tee shot off the first tee to signal the official start of the tournament, the 28th of the 2007 season and one that many are saying could become one of the tour’s most prestigious before long.

It certainly helps its reputation that for the next two years, the AT&T national will be held on the venerable blue Course at Congressional Country Club, whose founding members included presidents Taft, Coolidge, Hoover, Wilson, and Harding, as well as business leaders such as Harvey Firestone, William Carnegie, William Randolph Hearst, and Walter Chrysler. Yesterday, Adam Scott, who finished second in the Booz Allen Classic here two years ago, said it ranked among his top five courses on tour and several other players have expressed a fondness.

Opened in 1924, the Blue Course was designed by Devereaux Emmet and modified in 1957 by Robert Trent Jones. In 1989 and 1995, Trent Jones’s son Rees made further changes and earlier this year the green and tee on the old par 3 18th swapped positions and the resulting hole became the 10th, which meant the old 466-yard par 4 17th, whose green is ringed on three sides by water, became a far more dramatic, not to say fitting, closing hole.

The U.S. Amateur will be played here in 2009 and the U.S. open will return for a third time (its first U.S. open was in 1964 when Ken Venturi endured crippling heatstroke to win by four, the second 10 years ago when Ernie Els beat Colin montgomerie by a stroke and Tom Lehman by two) in 2011 when Tiger’s tournament will surely have to find another stage in the vicinity, but Woods has made no secret of the fact he wishes Congressional to become its long-term home.

Somewhat lost in all the hoopla surrounding the quality of the course, the Fourth of July celebrations, the military presence, and the recent arrival of Woods’s daughter, Sam Alexis, is the golf itself and the race for the Fedex Cup which appears to be arousing about as much interest among both players and fans as the death of the international did, and considerably less excitement than the PGA Tour would have wished.

Conversely, while the season-long accumulation of points and the $10 million prize that goes to the player who wins the most hasn’t yet caught the public’s imagination , it is apparent that each tournament has been growing in stature with opinion constantly divided over which events are bigger and more important than the others. The phrase “The Fifth major” has actually been used to describe at least four tournaments this year, albeit unconvincingly, which suggests the tour is doing something right.

One of it soundest decisions in recent years was allowing Woods, upon whose shoulders the tour’s health most assuredly rests, the honor of hosting his own tournament. The decision to make it a select field event with only 120 players rather than the 144 of full-field events was met with some controversy among journeyman pros, but ultimately no one felt comfortable denying Woods the right to do it his way. He has helped put food on the tables, and in some cases sleek sports cars and sizable boats on the driveways, of many a lower-ranked professional.

Woods is clearly in his element here and following the disappointment of a second straight runnersup finish in this year’s majors and the stress he must have felt at the U.S. open during which his wife, elin, was submitted to the Arnold Palmer Hospital following complications with the pregnancy, he will no doubt be looking forward to getting back out on the course and doing what he does best.

With all his duties around the tournament and back at the house, the quietest and most relaxing place he’s going to find during the next four days is between the ropes. And if the work he’s done with Hank Haney recently has been as productive as he says, then he should be between the ropes all week.

tonydear71@comcast.net