DID YOU KNOW – WGC – BRIDGESTONE INVITATIONAL
• In 2007 Tiger Woods created a European Tour record by winning the tournament for a third consecutive season. He became the first player to win the same event for three consecutive years on two different occasions, having already won the event in 1999, 2000 and 2001, then in 2005, 2006 and 2007.
• Woods won the event for a seventh time in 2009; the first time a player has won an official European Tour event on seven occasions.
• Woods has a remarkable record over the South Course at Firestone. He has played in the tournament 13 times; winning it on seven occasions, tied second in 2004, fourth in 2002, tied fourth in 2003 and tied eighth in 2012.
• Should Keegan Bradley win for the second successive year at Firestone, he would become only the second player to make a successful defence of a WGC event. Tiger Woods is the only person to achieve this feat. He won back-to-back titles in the WGC – Accenture Match Play Championship in 2003-04; the WGC – Cadillac Championship in 2002-03 and 2005-07 and WGC – Bridgestone Invitational in 1999-2001 and 2005-07.
• A total of 37 European Tour Members qualified to play in the 2013 tournament. However, Louis Oosthuizen and Peter Senior are not competing. Of the remaining 35 Members, two will be making their first appearance in any of the WGC events. They are: Jonas Blixt and Mikko Ilonen. Eight European Tour Members are making their debuts in the WGC – Bridgestone Invitational, including Blixt and Ilonen. The other six are: Kiradech Aphibarnrat, David Lynn, Thorbjørn Olesen, Richie Ramsay, Jaco Van Zyl and Chris Wood.
• The 2013 WGC - Bridgestone Invitational will be played for the 15th time, 14 of the them at Firestone Country Club’s South Course. The only year it was not staged at the Ohio layout was in 2002 when Sahalee CC was the venue.
• Jim Furyk, Phil Mickelson and Lee Westwood will be playing in their 15th consecutive WGC – Bridgestone Invitational. The trio have the honour of being the only players to have competed in every WGC – Bridgestone Invitational since the first year in 1999.
• Open Champion Phil Mickelson will be looking for his third European Tour International Schedule victory, having won the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open the previous week. The last player to win on The European Tour in three consecutive appearances was Martin Kaymer (2010 USPGA Championship, 2010 KLM Open and 2010 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship).
• At aged 45 years and 163 days, Vijay Singh is the oldest winner of a WGC event when he won here at Firestone in 2008.
