Tiger Woods takes a three shot lead into the weekend at his own tournament, the Chevron World Challenge at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, California. Tiger has been ‘STUCK’ on 71 tour wins for two years now and what a place to end his long drought where he’s won 4 times in this event’s 12 years.

On Wednesday, Woods held his usual pre-tournament newsconference and I asked him not only about trusting his new swing after more changes working with his latest coach Sean Foley, but also about this hockey goalie mask story that I randomly came across before heading out to speak to him.

It turns out that the one and only ‘official Tiger Woods goalie mask’ painted by Suzie Mathias was displayed in the Hockey Hall of Fame from 2005-06 in its “Shoot For a Cure” auction inventory. It’s autographed by Tiger, and commemorates his four consecutive Majors that he won in 2000-01.

It really is a beautiful work of art and I would love to have it displayed in my place except for one little problem…it’s listed at $4,999 on ebay (although it has been dropped by $1,000) and is still several thousand over my price range. As you’ll hear in Tiger’s response to me, he doesn’t recall the mask at all but at least he opened up with a nice glib reply which ended up in a few of the reporters stories (including my friend Karen Crouse of the New York Times). Just having fun here…as it’s hardly brain surgery, right? lol

In the old days, we’d all be counting this weekend as another easy win for Tiger (since he’s the halfway leader by 3). But these are these days and Woods has yet to finish anybody off down the stretch since his public and private downfall two Thanksgivings ago.

Whatever the rhetoric out there…golf could use some big wins by Tiger and no better time to start than right now—in his own hometown! Good luck Eldrick and welcome back, I think?

Tiger Woods with Ted Sobel: