Woods praying for consistent reign

ERNIE ELS and Vijay Singh are right on his heels and could overtake him on Sunday night but Tiger Woods has now equalled Greg Norman's record of 331 successive weeks as the world number one.

It's an amazing achievement in an era when the worldwide strength in depth is unparalleled. Oddly enough, Tiger didn't seem all that impressed by the statistic at Whistling Straits yesterday as he continued his preparation for the US PGA Championship beginning tomorrow. He recalled the prime of both Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson when there wasn't any ranking scheme in place.

However, he did allow: "As for the '90s up to here, it's nice to have been as consistent as I've been. That's one thing I'm very proud of. It's the only way you can stay up there as long as I have. It was just the same with Greg. Every week he would seem to make the top ten and that's if he played poorly. If he played well, he won."

Which is all very fine but there was a time a few years ago when nobody could get within touching distance of Woods. That was up to mid 2002 when his victory in the US Open at Bethpage Park was his fourth major in succession and he was truly master of all he surveyed.

A lot of golf shots have been hit in the meantime as Tiger's decline took off and in the past few months Els and Singh, with Phil Mickelson not too far behind, have yapped at his heels.

It's not a feeling Woods cares for and is one of the reasons why he desperately wants to close out 2004 with a major success this week. How he would dearly like to recapture those halcyon days!

"I got into a great rhythm then and there's no substitute for confidence and I was feeling confident," he said.

"I was sitting up there and hitting shots and making a bunch of putts. That was probably the best stretch I've ever had where putting was concerned. Look at the way I putted in the US Open at Pebble Beach and the British Open was about the same."

In golfing terms, though, that was a relatively long time ago. Since Bethpage '02, South Africans Retief Goosen and Ernie Els became the only double major champions as a whole series of first timers broke Tiger's dominance, guys like Rich Beem, Ben Curtis, Shaun Micheel and Todd Hamilton, on whom you wouldn't have wagered a cent before the first ball was struck.

Speaking of betting, Tiger was even usurped as the bookmakers' favourite at the British Open and this week by Els, who is on offer at 6 to 1 with Woods at 7 to 1.

Can he turn a troublesome corner in his career?

"I feel like I'm playing better and I'm excited," he insisted in a manner and tone that has become increasingly familiar and is lampooned by the game's many cynics.

Continuing in the same vein, he said: "If I had not given myself a chance through those last eight major championships that I haven't won, then I would be bothered a lot more. I should have won the last two Opens. I was right there at Royal St Georges last year when I bogeyed two of the last three holes and missed a play-off by two with a lost ball on the first hole the first day. This year, I was playing well enough but made just one birdie in 36 holes on the back nine. I was hitting the ball well enough to do it. If I had not gone through stretches like that when I was playing well, it would be more frustrating."

Woods makes a valid point and one that will stand to him when it comes to gaining the confidence he needs to see him through this week and to that long awaited success.

Like most, he's unsure about this golf course, admitting: "If the wind blows like this, I don't think I'll have played anything as difficult. If it doesn't blow, the guys will shoot good scores. Today, every hole was cross wind. You rarely face any shot into the wind or downwind. Everything is off either the left or right which makes it very difficult.

"There's the possibility of making double bogey with a marginal shot, not a bad golf shot, just a marginal shot. You get a bad bounce and suddenly you're down one of those cliffs or you get into a rut or a bunker and you have no golf shot. You might have to putt it back in the middle of the bunker to advance it to the green."

Woods remains unconvinced that Whistling Straits has any legitimate claims to being a links and emphasised that "it's not like Troon this year where you could land it 50, 60 yards short and run it all the way up to the green. Here, the ball is just not going to run. It's links-style golf but it's also target golf. It's both. It looks like a links but plays more like a target golf course because you can't bounce the ball up. I ripped a couple of 3 irons just trying to land the ball short and it rolled only 10 feet. At Troon that would have meant 50, 60 yards."

Tiger also seems incapable of saying if he likes the course or not. Asked if he would like to play Whistling Straits regularly, he quipped: "If I was an 18 handicapper, I would not want to play here."

Spoken in jest, but a comment that those in Ireland currently building courses that only the game's greatest are able to play might well take on board.

He continued: "If the wind doesn't blow, then this is a great place to play. It's a lot of fun. But if the wind howls, well it's so difficult. There's no one hole that concerns me more than any other. There are 18 of them."

TEE-OFF times in the first and second rounds of the 86th USPGA Championship, Whistling Straits (USA unless stated, all times local -6 BST):

(x) denotes amateurs

1st tee Thursday, 10th tee Friday

0700 and 1215: E Romero (Arg), S Kendall, R Thompson

0710 and 1225: R Philo Jr, T Clark, R Gamez

0720 and 1235: H Frazar, T Purdy, A Cejka (Ger)

0730 and 1245: S Elkington (Aus), L Nelson, J Sluman

0740 and 1255: T Hiratsuka (Jpn), R Jacquelin (Fra), R Mediate

0750 and 1305: D Clarke (Irl), J Leonard, KJ Choi (Kor)

0800 and 1315: K Perry, A Scott (Aus), S McCarron

0810 and 1325: D Howell (Eng), N O'Hern (Aus), R Sabbatini (Rsa)

0820 and 1335: S Cink, P Casey (Eng), S Leaney (Aus)

0830 and 1345: P Price (Wal), B Estes, C Pettersson (Swe)

0840 and 1355: B Faxon, B Curtis, S Flesch

0850 and 1405: N Fasth (Swe), C Thomas, B Jones (Aus)

0900 and 1415: F Bensel, C Hungate, M Northern

1215 and 0700: I Woosnam (Wal), M Hensby (Aus), SK Ho (Kor)

1225 and 0710: L Donald (Eng), J Coston, T Pernice Jnr.

1235 and 0720: J Byrd, H Irwin, C Parry (Aus)

1245 and 0730: R Allenby (Aus), F Jacobson (Swe), J Kelly

1255 and 0740: D Toms, D Love III, R Beem

1305 and 0750: J Rose (Eng), S Appleby (Aus), Z Johnson

1315 and 0800: S Micheel, B Quigley, P Azinger

1325 and 0810: S Katayama (Jpn), F Funk, C Montgomerie (Sco)

1335 and 0820: R Goosen (Rsa), T Hamilton, P Mickelson

1345 and 0830: C Howell III, N Faldo (Eng), M Campbell (Nzl)

1355 and 0840: J.M Olazabal (Spa), G Norman (Aus), M O'Meara

1405 and 0850: D Waldorf, Q Griffing, H Tanaka (Jpn)

1415 and 0900: S English, M Baker, B Smith

10th tee Thursday, 1st tee Friday:

0700 and 1215: B Van Pelt, S Lowery, M Small (Eng)

0710 and 1225: R Gonzalez (Arg), T Herron, T Fleming

0720 and 1235: J Kaye, G McDowell (Irl), T Byrum

0730 and 1245: I Poulter (Eng), J Haas, B Andrade

0740 and 1255: B Sowards, H Slocum, J.L. Lewis

0750 and 1305: J Furyk, E Els (Rsa), P Harrington (Irl)

0800 and 1315: B Langer (Ger), S Garcia (Spa), M Calcavecchia

0810 and 1325: T Immelman (Rsa), J Sindelar, L Roberts

0820 and 1335: V Singh (Fij), J Daly, T Woods

0830 and 1345: S Maruyama (Jpn), M A Jimenez (Spa), S Hoch

0840 and 1355: L Westwood (Eng), C DiMarco, S Verplank

0850 and 1405: B Davis (Eng), M Gogel, D Tentis

0900 and 1415: M Evenson, M Schuchart, R Biancalana

1215 and 0700: T Jaidee (Tha), T Petrovic, C Sullivan

1225 and 0710: A Schulte, J F Remesy (Fra), R Pampling (Aus)

1235 and 0720: B Pappas (Rsa), C Campbell, J Haeggman (Swe)

1245 and 0730: P McGinley (Irl), A Cabrera (Arg), B Baird

1255 and 0740: P Sheehan, T Armour III, K Sutherland

1305 and 0750: S Drummond (Sco), F Lickliter II, D Hart

1315 and 0800: M Brooks, H Sutton, B Tway

1325 and 0810: C Riley, C Franco (Par), S Ames (Can)

1335 and 0820: D Duval, J Huston, P Lonard (Aus)

1345 and 0830: T Levet (Fra), J Lankford, K Triplett

1355 and 0840: J Parnevik (Swe), M Weir (Can), F Couples

1405 and 0850: A Oberholser, G Ogilvy (Aus), S Schneiter

1415 and 0900: Z Zwemke, B Britton, J Roth.