WOODS BACK IN THE SWING.

Byline: DAVE SHELBURNE Golf

He's no longer reigning PGA Player of the Year or the No. 1 golfer in the world, having yielded both titles this year to Vijay Singh. But Tiger Woods is excited about his prospects for the 2005 season, following a season in which he struggled to win but saw much progress in his revamped golf swing.

``I've put in a lot of work and changed my game, and I started seeing signs of it in the last three, four months,'' Woods said Tuesday, speaking in his role this week as host of his annual Target World Challenge fund-raising tournament at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks.

The 16-man, 72-hole stroke-play event, which runs Thursday through Sunday, benefits the Tiger Woods Foundation.

Woods admits that even with the improvement, progress with the new swing has been spotty: ``You see one great round here and then all of a sudden, you'd lose it and then get it back.''

But the swing change is something he's committed to doing, and the change has produced the same kind of readjustment inconsistency Woods experienced in 1998, when he changed his swing one year after his record-breaking first major title at the Masters.

Woods had just one win in 1998. But he won eight times the following year and nine times in 2000, the most on tour since Ben Hogan won 10 times in 1948.

Woods, who started his latest swing tinkering last spring after winning the World Golf Championship Accenture Match Play championship at La Costa, saw his game coming back more than getting away more than two weeks ago, when he won by eight strokes at the Dunlop Phoenix in Miyazaki, Japan.

``It's finally nice to see some positive results,'' he said.

He said he opted for the swing change because, despite winning at least five tournaments in each of the previous five years, ``I felt like something needed to be changed because I wasn't having the results.

``I won at La Costa, but I won because I putted great,'' Woods said. ``I hit it all over the map. My iron play was not what it normally is, and I just made every (putt). Even though I won the tournament, I knew that I wasn't going to do it for the rest of the year, so I had to start changing things.''

Now, he believes, the swing he wants is getting closer and closer.

``In Japan, I hit almost 80 percent of the fairways that week, which for me is unheard of,'' Woods said. ``Going back to 2000, I never hit that many, or any day I never hit that many. I always seemed to hit nine fairways a day, maybe 10 on a good day. There were times (in Japan) I hit 12 or 13 fairways, so that's very exciting, and that's how I won.''

And that's what he wants to get back to doing.

In that respect, Woods draws some positive from his struggles to learn a new swing:

``This year is almost identical to what it was in '98, numbers-wise,'' he said, ``and I'm excited about the prospects of next year, and hopefully it'll be similar to the results I had in '99.''

--Getting her big break: Tasha Browner, the former Montclair Prep of Panorama City all-around athlete who went on to star for the Washington State women's golf team and later won the Los Angeles City Women's Championship, can be seen participating in ``The Big Break III'' next year on The Golf Channel.

Browner, 23, a touring pro and the golf shop manager of El Caballero Country Club in Tarzana, will be one of 10 women - including Danielle Amiee of Newport Beach and Felicia Brown of Redondo Beach - competing in the elimination skills-challenge competition, which will broadcast its first segment Feb. 8.

The survivor will receive entry into select LPGA tournaments, including the May 5-8 Michelob Ultra Open and the May 26-29 LPGA Corning Classic.

--Names in the game:

Former Westlake High standout Charlie Wi earned playing privileges on the 2005 PGA Tour by shooting 68 in the final round of PGA Tour Qualifying School at La Quinta. Wi, the 1990 state amateur champion who was co-medalist in the first round of Q School this year, tied for the final qualifying spot with his closing round at PGA West Stadium Course.

Santa Clarita Valley resident Bob Burns and former Occidental College golfer Olin Browne, past PGA Tour winners attempting to reclaim tour privileges, missed qualifying by a stroke at 426 in a competition won by Brian Davis at 415. ...

Former Valencia High, College of the Canyons and Cal State Northridge golfer Brad Uptgraft of Valencia made a 4-foot birdie putt on the final hole to win the Southern California Golf Association four-ball championship with fellow Santa Clarita Valley resident Tucker Brown of Newhall. Uptgraft, 23, and Brown, 26 combined for a 68-67 total to win the 14th SCGA four-ball competition by a stroke at SCGA Golf Club in Murrieta. ...

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