---

NORTON - Patience. That is what Tiger Woods is preaching as it pertains to the inaugural PGA Tour Playoffs.

"This is an experiment for the Tour and I equated it to being very similar to what NASCAR went through," he said. "No one really understood it until after it happened and after a couple of years, people really got behind it. As we can all see, it's been flourishing.

"We've never had this type of system before, where it's about the points. Our tour has always been about the money list. So, it's been switched around a little bit and we're trying to get used to thinking of points.

"We're trying to get accustomed to it. It's going to take a little bit before we are all able to understand it and we start mapping out the points that you need, how far are you behind, what place you are in and what kind of finish you need. But W's take care of everything. It makes things pretty exciting coming down to the last few weeks."

Woods, the top-ranked player on the PGA Tour Money List and the World Rankings, completed the 36-event regular season in first place in the FedEx Cup standings, earning 100,000 points in the process. However, after losing considerable weight and energy at the hot and steamy Southern Hill Country Club in Tulsa, Okla. while winning the PGA Championship, the world's top player decided to take the last couple of weeks off.

"It was nice to get away from it for a little bit and get recharged and focused for the next several weeks," said Woods. "I lifted and trained through that time. I tried to eat as much as I possibly could to get my weight back up from the PGA and I am almost there.

"You've got to look at the bigger picture, especially given what we went through temperature-wise those two weeks around the PGA. I lost quite a bit of weight and it's not easy for me to put weight on. I lose it pretty quickly and need a little bit of extra time to get it back up."

That break included the opening round of the new PGA Tour Playoffs, The Barclays at Westchester Country Club in Harrison, N.Y. Woods took criticism from some circles about his absence last week.

"As far as the players, I really haven't heard much," he said. "I know that a bunch of my buddies were giving me some grief. But as far as any of the media stuff, I haven't seen it. I've been out on the boat and getting away from it."

After starting the PGA Tour Playoffs in first place, Woods dropped down to fourth after Steve Stricker won The Barclays last week, collecting a total of 9,000 points and vaulting him from the 12th spot to the top position.

K.J. Choi (5,400 points) and Rory Sabbatini (3,400) finished second and third, respectively, at The Barclays and moved ahead of Woods as well. Choi now has 102,900 points and Sabbatini is ahead of Woods by 650 points.

"I know I've slipped back in the standings, but there are plenty of points out there," he said. "I am just looking to go out there and get some W's. If you are not ready to win, there's really no point in playing. And that's how I've always played."

"That's why I've played a very limited schedule and when I come to play, I come to win, period. I want to give it my best in order to do that. The limited schedule has allowed me to prepare both mentally and physically."

"It is a long season and that's the whole idea of not playing a lot throughout the year so that when you do play, you are fresh. You're able to go in with the same energy level each and every time." And the defending Deutsche Bank Champion has some pretty good players nipping at his heels as Phil Mickelson (99,613) and Vijay Singh (99,000) are right behind him in the playoff standings, sitting fifth and sixth, respectively.

For the fans of the DBC, the standings are quite fortuitous as the trio will be paired together for the first two days of the tournament. Woods, Mickelson and Singh will tee off at the first hole today at 1:07 p.m. and at the 10th hole on Saturday at 8:22 a.m.

"I think the only time we've been paired together in a threesome is at the Grand Slam," said Woods. "But not the first two days. Usually on the weekend, we're probably in twosomes, so it's been really rare that all three of us can be at the same score on the weekend to get the pairing where all three of us were in the same group."

"I don't think it's ever happened. The Grand Slam is the only one that I can recall. You can have a great pairing, but just like anything, you've just got to keep playing along, keep plugging along and see where you are come Monday."

With the changes in the golf course at Tournament Player Club Boston this year and the dry summer the area has seen, Woods does not expect to see a lot of birdies during the Deutsche Bank Championship this week.

"I know they've changed the course several times," said Woods, "and this time they've really done just a heck of a job and made it much more natural to the surroundings. They made it probably slightly more difficult."

"The greens are a little faster right now, the fairways are giving it up a little bit and you are really going to have to make sure you manage your game a little bit. In some of the previous years we've played, we just had to make a bunch of birdies, just go super low. It's going to be a little more difficult to do that this year."

The way the PGA Tour Playoffs are structured, the top 144 golfers in the regular season standings qualified for the first stop of the playoffs, The Barclays. The top 120 players from last week advanced to the Deutsche Bank Championship this weekend with the top 70 after this tournament going on to the BMW Championship next week at the Cog Hill Golf and Country Club, which is located just outside of Chicago.

The top 30 finishers at the BMW will qualify for the final round of the playoffs, The Tour Championship, which will be played at the East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta from September 10-16.

"I've really had some good success at Cog Hill," said Woods. "Even though I've never won in Atlanta, I came close a few times. I like East Lake. I think it's a very neat course in the sense that there's really not a whole lot of trouble, but it's hard to go low there. I think you find that guys have a hard time shooting some really good numbers there."