THE hardest fair golf course I have ever played.

This was the view of Tiger Woods after he had failed yet again in a major championship, this time the US PGA at Oak Hill.

He may still be the runaway world number one but it is now unarguable that the rest are catching up, especially on the big occasions. Woods yesterday shot 73 for ten over 292 and that was never going to be close enough to end his major drought now dating back to last year’s US Open.

He wasn’t using the difficulty of the course as an excuse for his latest failure, rather was he more than a little disgusted at how rarely he was able to hit the fairways. “Calc (Mark Calcavecchia) was the only one out there missing more fairways than I was,” he smiled ruefully. The statistics support that view.

Woods kept his tee shots on the short grass 35.7% of the time on Thursday; 64.3% on Friday; an appalling 28.6% on Saturday and 57.1% yesterday for an overall average of 46.4%. That simply isn’t good enough on a golf course measuring 7,134 yards with narrow fairways and absolutely vicious rough. And he knew it.

“I only had six birdies and it was tough. The key was not to miss the fairways by one foot. That’s what I did a lot of times and it’s the worst place to be. Miss it in the galleries, miss it in the trees and you have a shot to the green. If it just rolls in, you can only hack it up the fairway. You only have to look at this golf course to know it’s not playing easy,” he said.

“I didn’t hit the ball close enough to give myself chances. Every putt of ten feet in, I more or less buried but they were all for saves. I putted well just to make the cut and that was good. This golf course is so difficult. You had regular Tour guys twenty over par after two rounds.

“When the cut is plus eight, it shows how difficult it’s playing, because we’ve had some cuts of minus six this year. And all it takes is a couple of bad shots here and there. You turn the club over, you can make six in a heartbeat. If you are not getting it in play, you will shoot high numbers. And still it’s fun to play golf courses like these. They’re not tricked up.

“The game has changed and become more difficult and easier at the same time. You get rewarded for playing in events with no cut like the Mercedes, the AMEX, NEC, the Tour Championship and stuff like that, and then you have a championship as tough as this. It’s the hardest fair golf course I have ever played. Carnoustie at the British Open in ‘99 wasn’t set up fairly. This is a very fair test. It’s right there in front of you. It’s just very difficult and it’s fun to play courses that are fair and challenging at the same time.”

“I played today with Aaron Baddeley and he was dressed very colourfully. I heard one of the greatest lines of the week out there. We were going from 13 to 14 when some guy shouted out, ‘look, it’s Tiger and the Pink Panther’.”

Nobody found the courage to mention the slump word but where the majors are concerned, Woods is going to find it more and more difficult to argue the toss. Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 majors, which looked to be in great danger twelve months ago, is now looking appreciably safer and the more Woods struggles “I only had six birdies and it was tough. The key was not to miss the fairways by one foot. That’s what I did a lot of times and it’s the worst place to be. Miss it in the galleries, miss it in the trees and you have a shot to the green. If it just rolls in, you can only hack it up the fairway. You only have to look at this golf course to know it’s not playing easy,” he said.

“I didn’t hit the ball close enough to give myself chances. Every putt of ten feet in, I more or less buried but they were all for saves. I putted well just to make the cut and that was good. This golf course is so difficult. You had regular Tour guys twenty over par after two rounds.

“When the cut is plus eight, it shows how difficult it’s playing, because we’ve had some cuts of minus six this year. And all it takes is a couple of bad shots here and there. You turn the club over, you can make six in a heartbeat. If you are not getting it in play, you will shoot high numbers. And still it’s fun to play golf courses like these. They’re not tricked up.

“The game has changed and become more difficult and easier at the same time. You get rewarded for playing in events with no cut like the Mercedes, the AMEX, NEC, the Tour Championship and stuff like that, and then you have a championship as tough as this. It’s the hardest fair golf course I have ever played. Carnoustie at the British Open in ‘99 wasn’t set up fairly. This is a very fair test. It’s right there in front of you. It’s just very difficult and it’s fun to play courses that are fair and challenging at the same time.”

“I played today with Aaron Baddeley and he was dressed very colourfully. I heard one of the greatest lines of the week out there. We were going from 13 to 14 when some guy shouted out, ‘look, it’s Tiger and the Pink Panther’.”

Nobody found the courage to mention the slump word but where the majors are concerned, Woods is going to find it more and more difficult to argue the toss. Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 majors, which looked to be in great danger twelve months ago, is now looking appreciably safer and the more Woods struggles , the more difficult it will become. His Ryder Cup captain, Hal Sutton, believes he understands the problem.

“Tiger made us think it was easy to win major championships,” said Sutton. “It’s not. He puts a tremendous amount of pressure on himself to be the greatest player in the world. He has to remind himself of what his expectations are, evaluate correctly and go from there.” Sutton, who earlier in the week promised that he would talk to Woods in the near future about his attitude to playing for the States in the Ryder Cup, added pointedly: “I’m still a Tiger fan”.

There is little doubt that Woods will win again in the future on courses with little or no rough. The extent to which he is aware of his problem was recently proved by his decision to switch from the Nike to his old Titleist driver but even that has given his critics a chance to make a point.

At number ten yesterday, Woods was in the rough as usual when a man called out: “You can’t blame your Nike driver now.” The heckler was booed but the point, however tastelessly made, was valid.