The Hole Story by Craig DeVrieze

He also knows who he will have to beat to do it.

“I like his chances, I really do,” Perry said of a certain Tiger Woods.

Perry might be one of several million people picking the defending Open champion, who also was a red-clad winner at the last national championship staged at New York’s Bethpage State Park’s Black Course in 2002.

Perry is one of the 155, however, who will be battling next week to unseat the world’s top-ranked golfer and, with Stewart Cink, he was one of just two people playing alongside Woods and Jack Nicklaus, the legend Woods’ is trying to unseat as the best golfer ever, in a Skins Game last week in Columbus, Ohio.

“That was an honor for me,” said Perry, who was the defending champion at the Nicklaus-hosted Memorial that Woods went on to win last Sunday. “I mean I was in heaven. I loved it out there.

“I really paid close attention to Jack because that is probably the last time we will see him play in public. But I really paid attention to Tiger also, and his golf swing looks a whole lot better than it has.”

Perry said Woods appears to have shaken off whatever rust resulted from a 10-month layoff for knee surgery and rehabilitation following his win at the U.S. Open last June near San Diego.

“Every shot was in control,” said Perry, whose own golf swing has carried him to 13 PGA Tour victories, including last year’s John Deere Classic. “He didn’t overswing. He was hitting a hard slider, which when he played his best, that was the kind of shot he was hitting, and he has got the best short game on Tour by far.”

Despite a win and five other Top 10 finishes in his seven starts pre-Memorial, Woods had looked somewhat vulnerable due to an erratic driver that had him ranked outside the top 100 in fairways hit.

Woods hit 14 of 14 fairways en route to a come-from-behind win on Sunday in Columbus. He hit 87.5 percent of the Muirfield Village fairways over the course of the week.

If Woods hits fairways like that next week, conventional wisdom states, he’ll win in a walk.

Hold on, Perry said.

“Muirfield is a big, wide open golf course,” he noted. “Even though it plays like a U.S. Open course, it’s got 35-yard fairways. Now, when we get to the 20 yards (wide fairways) at Bethpage, it may be a different scenario.”

On the other hand, Perry noted of Woods, “He definitely has the strength and ability to move it out of the rough better than anyone else, also.”

Something else Woods has done with great success at previous U.S. and British Opens is to leave the driver in his bag and hit 3-woods and irons off the tee, a better way to avoid ankle-deep rough.

Bethpage could foil such a strategy.

“You know, Bethpage is 7,500 to 7,400 yards long,” he said. “I don’t know if he totally can put that thing away.”

But if Woods hits fairways? Look out.

“I like his chances, I really do,” said Perry, who finished four places ahead of Tiger at Augusta. “I think he’s not trying to overswing now, and I think he is highly motivated. He’s had a lot of time off and he has two kids now. He’s got college to pay for.”

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