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Woods makes surprise appearance in Boston
There was a surprise guest at the Four Seasons in Boston for Wednesday night's Deutsche Bank Championship pro-am draw party: Tiger Woods.
With the Tiger Woods Foundation being a beneficiary of the tournament, Woods stopped by after the Notah Begay charity outing in upstate New York to say a few words. Afterward, Woods headed to a private box at the Red Sox-Yankees game at Fenway Park.
Woods is a personal friend of Seth Waugh, CEO of Deutsche Bank Americas and face of the tournament. Eric Baldwin, tournament director, reached out to the Woods camp when Tiger was officially not eligible for the FedEx Cup playoff.
"He was actually pretty funny," Baldwin said Thursday morning from TPC Boston. "He started by saying he was looking forward to playing this week and then added, 'not.' He was kind of making fun of himself a little bit. He was making light of it. Everyone laughed."
The Deutsche Bank pro-am draw party is unique in that only tournament "founders" are in the room. It was the second example within three days of Woods doing the right thing for golf. On Monday he entered the Frys.com Open, reminding everyone on his website, "One of my goals this year was to participate in a tournament I hadn't played before, and now, I will."
(Related: Tiger's stalled comeback)
Woods has played seven of eight Deutsche Bank Championships, missing only 2008 because of knee surgery. He won in 2006, the year before the Deutsche Bank became part of the FedEx Cup playoffs.
"We kept it very low key," Baldwin said. "We didn't want to make a big deal out of it. It was more about being there for Seth and Deutsche Bank. He didn't want to make a big PR deal out of it. I didn't even tell our staff. He just wanted to thank the folks. It was very meaningful for us. It was cool that he was in that room."
-- Tim Rosaforte