Tiger Woods, who finished fourth behind winner Henrik Stenson at the World Challenge on the weekend, has already switched his attention towards his role as United States playing captain at next week’s Presidents Cup in Australia.

The tournament host in the Bahamas was tied for the lead with five holes left at Albany Golf Club on the island of New Providence, but bogeyed the 14th hole after three poor shots in a row and was never a factor thereafter.

“I had my chances,” Woods said, after carding three-under-par 69 to finish four strokes behind Stenson.

I didn’t make a lot of putts, a lot of birdies on the weekend.

“I had a lot of good opportunities to put the ball in there close from where I drove it and just didn’t quite hit it close enough.

“(I was) just outside that range and consequently ended up short.”

Woods’ problems at the short par-four 14th began when he yanked his drive and ended up in a nasty lie in a waste bunker near the green, from where he pretty much had to hit and hope that the ball came off the sand with the appropriate speed, spin and trajectory.

But he fired his second shot over the green, before fluffing a chip that failed to get up the slope and rolled back almost to his feet.

Woods will have plenty of time on the day-long flight to Australia to contemplate what went wrong and put it right as he leads the US against the Internationals at Royal Melbourne.

He plans to talk things over with his team on the charter flight.

“We’re going to be locked up in a tin can for 23 hours, so we’re just going to enjoy the ride down there and do a little bit of talking, a couple of meetings here and there on the flight so we all have an understanding of what our roles are going to be down there,” he said.

Woods has researched the weather forecast for Melbourne, where scorching temperatures are expected on Monday before a change brings in cool temperatures for the tournament itself later in the week.

“Typical Melbourne,” Woods said of the Victorian capital.

-AAP