By Andrew Both
NORTON, Massachusetts (Reuters) - Hurricane Earl has prompted PGA Tour officials to bring tee times forward by 40 minutes for the first round of the Deutsche Bank Championship on Friday.
The first groups will tee off at 7 a.m. local time (1100 GMT) because officials are fearful foul weather will disrupt play later in the day.
Earl is not expected to directly strike the Boston TPC, but there is a chance its outer bands will dump a prodigious amount of rain on the course, starting around lunch time.
Ninety-nine players will toe the starting line - Kenny Perry has withdrawn due to "mental and physical exhaustion" - in the second event of the tour's FedEx Cup playoff series.
Only the top 70 will advance to next week's event in suburban Chicago, and Tiger Woods will compete this week in the unaccustomed position of needing a respectable result to avoid being eliminated.
Woods helped his cause with a tie for 12th in last week's event in New Jersey, which lifted him to 65th on the points list.
However, he still has some work to do, needing to finish probably no worse than 50th this week to preserve his spot in the top 70 on the points list.
Woods, who remains world number one despite the worst season of his professional career, was asked whether it felt "weird" to be so low in the standings.
"Yes, and a little bit of no, too, just because of what's transpired this year," he said Wednesday, referring to the tumultuous events that culminated with his recent divorce from wife Elin.
Woods last week played some of the best golf of his year, although it is hard to know how much of that was due to the mental relief of the divorce being finalized or his work with new coach Sean Foley.
"Some of the things that Sean and I have been working on are starting to feel a little bit more natural," Woods said.
"I hit some really good shots last week, drove the ball great and the only thing that kept me from really contending was my putter (in the middle two rounds)."
The way the playoff points system is structured, those currently ranked in the top 50 should survive for next week, even if they miss the cut here.
Woods is not the only big name ranked lower than 50th who needs to play well this week to remain alive.
Argentine Angel Cabrera (55th), Korean Y.E. Yang (56th), Irishman Padraig Harrington (57th) and American Lucas Glover (63rd) are among the others who cannot take their passage to Chicago for granted.
(Editing by Steve Ginsburg)
