Entering PGA, Woods Takes the Long View

CHASKA, Minn., Aug. 11 -- When Jack Nicklaus teed off at the 1973 PGA Championship at Canterbury Golf Club in Cleveland, he was 33, playing in his 48th major as a professional, looking for his first major title of the season. He won, and his season -- always defined by the four most prestigious tournaments in professional golf -- was salvaged.

Tiger Woods will tee off Thursday in the PGA Championship at Hazeltine National Golf Club here. He will do so at age 33, playing in his 50th major as a professional, looking for his first major title of the season. In any of Woods's previous 12 years as a pro, his performance this week would determine, to a large degree, how he views his season because, like Nicklaus, he defines his years by how he fared in golf's four most prestigious tournaments.

Woods, though, arrived in the rolling farmland of the Midwest not only dealing with his own comments criticizing the PGA Tour's handling of a slow-play situation Sunday -- a situation that Woods believes contributed to the collapse of Padraig Harrington on the 16th hole of the Bridgestone Invitational, which Woods won -- but, more importantly, trying to push forward a different view of his season, an evaluation that can be made even before play begins here.

"It's been a great year either way," he said.

That assessment is based not on Woods's "failures" at the Masters (tied for sixth), the U.S. Open (tied for sixth) or the British Open (a shocking missed cut). It is based, rather, on two factors: Woods's five wins on the PGA Tour, including victories the past two weeks; and the fact that he is just more than a year removed from surgery that rebuilt his left knee and fixed a broken bone in his left leg.

Woods's accomplishments, for any other player, would be considered remarkable. No one else has won more than twice this season. In his last 22 stroke-play events, dating from the tail end of 2007, Woods has 13 wins -- meaning could almost be evaluated like a pitcher in baseball (13-9, ERA undetermined). Unbelievably, in that 22-tournament span, he has 21 top-10 finishes.

That, then, is the backdrop with which Woods is working. His usual standards, he said, are for other years. He has endured just three seasons as a pro -- 1998, 2003 and 2004 -- when he did not win a major. But the majors, in his mind, won't define his 2009.

"I've said that in the past," Woods said. "But I didn't have ACL reconstruction, either. It usually takes a while for an athlete to come back, and most guys -- or some of the guys who have had it in our sport -- have not gone on to have the years I've had this year.

"I'm very proud of not only winning the golf tournaments, but how consistent I've played."

That is all reasonable. Still, years from now, when Woods's career record is considered, he knows his victories at the Buick Open and the Bridgestone Invitational -- as impressive as they were the past two weeks -- will be mere blips. Before Woods came along, Nicklaus was widely considered the greatest player ever not because he won 73 PGA Tour events -- three more than Woods has now, and nine fewer than the record 82 won by Sam Snead -- but because of his record in the majors. Even while evaluating this season, Woods glossed over the fact that he may some day catch Snead and turned the conversation back to the majors.

"I've gotten to 14 majors," Woods said. "To try and get to 18 or beyond, it's going to take an entire career, and we all know that. It's just a long process."

Indeed, Nicklaus's record run of 18 major titles came between the ages of 22 and 46, a 24-year span. Taking out his one past-his-prime outlier -- his sixth Masters title, in 1986 -- Nicklaus won 17 majors before his 41st birthday. In his first 50 majors, he won 12 titles, or once every 4.2 starts, not quite one a year. Woods is on a slightly better pace, having won 14 of 49, or once every 3.5 starts -- better than one a year.