A back-to-form Vijay Singh, a 42-year-old Paul Goydos winning for the first time since 1996, a 16-year-old Hawaiian by the name of Tadd Fujikawa, and the crazy-haired Charley Hoffman have served up an appetizing, if not thrilling, start to the PGA Tour season. The real fireworks arrive this week at the Buick Invitational when Tiger Woods makes his first appearance of the year looking not only for his seventh-straight PGA Tour title but also his third straight win, and fifth altogether, at this event.

Tiger and this week’s venue, Torrey Pines in La Jolla, Calif., go together like, well, Tiger and Augusta National, Bay Hill, or Firestone — other courses on which he has won four times — or the Old Course at St Andrews where his 2000 and 2005 Open Championship titles were won convincingly, to say the very least.

Woods’s record at Torrey Pines — eight top-five finishes in nine professional appearances (he tied for 10th at the other) — is frankly illogical in this age of fierce competition and equipment so technologically advanced it is said to diminish the better player’s supremacy, and provides further evidence that the phrase “horses for courses,” while not as common as it once was, still holds much water.

Woods first played Torrey Pines when he was 12 and is clearly as comfortable here as he is relaxing on his yacht in the Caribbean or skiing in Colorado. “There aren’t many golf courses that fit a player’s eye,” he said. “This is one of those courses for me. I really enjoy playing here.”

Most of his competition this week has found some sort of groove in Hawaii or Palm Springs and might think Woods’s fourweek absence from competitive golf (his last meaningful stroke was the winning putt at his own Target World Challenge in Thousand Oaks, Calif.) gives them a better chance of conquering the world’s no. 1.

But, as organizers of the Mercedes-Benz Championship at Kapalua know well, Woods never will enter a tournament for which he isn’t ready. No, Woods is nothing if not meticulous and, if his practice rounds are anything to go by, swinging the club as fluently and powerfully as he was last summer when he simply couldn’t be beaten. And it’s not as if he’s known for starting slowly. Woods has won four of his season-opening events in the past 10 years and never finished outside the top 10.

It’s numbers like these and the fact Torrey Pines’s South Course stretches to a mammoth 7,607 yards and thus offers Woods and his fellow bombers a distinct advantage, that make Tiger such a strong favorite this week and have forced at least one British bookmaker to lay his odds at a miserly 11-to-8. That same penny-pinching bookie has Woods 2-to-9 to win the money title and first ever FedEx Cup.

Officially, Woods has given his backing to what is essentially nothing more than a marketing concept designed to maintain viewers’ interest throughout the year, and will no doubt do whatever is necessary to go down as the Cup’s first winner — after all, he likes the word “first” following his name. But the thought of becoming the first to win the Cup’s $10 million bonus probably doesn’t excite him as much as getting a couple of steps closer to Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 major championship titles.

It’s imprudent to suggest Woods won’t be committed to the FedEx Cup but give him that bonus check or one of the majors, and it’s probable the arm with which you offered him the major is in danger of being torn off. Tiger is all about rewriting history, of course, improving on what’s gone before, building a legend. Making a decent living, winning the Vardon Trophy for the lowest scoring average, being named Player of the Year, and becoming the first to win the FedEx Cup are nice sideshows. but they aren’t now, and never have been, Tiger’s ultimate ambition. He, and his minders at IMG, certainly take advantage of his market value (Golf Digest reports Woods earned $87 million away from the course last year) but Woods is more concerned with surpassing what the greats of the game have achieved and establishing new superlatives.

Admittedly, he has barely mentioned the possibility of his equaling and even passing Byron Nelson’s 11 straight PGA Tour victories, but rest assured it’s another milestone that is lurking somewhere in his mind. Should Woods win this week, interest and hype surrounding the potential breaking of Nelson’s 61-year standard will fill golf columns from Pluto to Venus.

Sam Snead’s 82 PGA Tour wins is another target and though Woods is unlikely to pass the number this year (he’s still 28 wins short and is expected to play in only 20–22 tournaments this season) it will soon start appearing on his “to-do” list if it hasn’t already.

Later this year, probably some time in July, it won’t be the thought of making history that gets Tiger out of bed, but the cries of his first child. No one knows how fatherhood will affect him, but one suspects Woods will dote on his firstborn as much as his own father, Earl, did on him, and thus possibly compromise his challenge for the FedEx Cup.

That’s all to come though. For now, Woods is focused solely on the Buick Championship and notching up his 55th tour victory. That said, it would surprise no one if he’s also using this week as an early reconnaissance mission for next year’s U.S. Open, being played on the South Course for the first time. Yes, he’s that disciplined.

tonydear71@comcast.net