Impossible to look beyond Tiger

First, first, second, second. For most that is the stuff of dreams but for Tiger Woods it represents under-achievement.

If it was not for Zach Johnson and Angel Cabrera producing the greatest golf of their lives at the Masters and the US Open, Woods would be at Carnoustie this week having just achieved another “Tiger Slam”.

As it is, the world number one, runner-up in the first two majors of the year despite having performed way below his best, is now focused on trying to become the first player since Australian Peter Thomson in 1956 to win three Open Championships in a row.

Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino and Tom Watson all had the same opportunity as Woods and it proved beyond them – Watson came closest but was denied by Seve Ballesteros at St Andrews in 1984 – but they would all agree that the man who dominates the game today is a league apart from them.

And certainly in a different league from the other 155 players gathered on the same Scottish links where eight years ago, hard though it is to believe right now, he was actually finding it hard to win majors.

Jean Van de Velde and Paul Lawrie, two qualifiers and neither ranked in the world’s top 100 (then or now), became the two central characters of a week dominated first by criticism of the lay-out – far, far too much rough unlike this year – and then by the craziest finish in Open history.

Lawrie became the first Scot to win on home soil since 1931 but only after Van de Velde, three ahead with one to play, had triple-bogeyed the last in his bid to be the first French winner since 1907.

Woods was seventh, making it 10 majors without a win. How things have changed.

Starting just a month later at the US PGA, where he held off the livewire Sergio Garcia, Woods won seven of the next 11.

Now he has four more, including one at St Andrews two years ago and then Hoylake, where remarkably he was in a class of his own again despite using a driver only once in four days.

Colin Montgomerie, yet again one of Europe’s main hopes to end a drought stretching back 31 majors to Lawrie, will again be looking for Woods’s score when he tees off two groups behind at 9.31am on Thursday.

“He’s obviously still competing to this level that we’ve never seen before,” said Montgomerie on Wednesday.

“We just look forward to trying to see if that remarkable record of Jack Nicklaus (18 majors between 1962 and 1986) can be equalled and then broken.

“There’s only one person really that can ever come close and I’m very lucky to be in this era to have a chance of witnessing it.

“Personally I don’t think there’s a question mark over whether he will. It’s when.”

That is backed up by a PA Sport poll of European tour players in which only one of 30 questioned was prepared to say that they thought Woods would end his career short of Nicklaus.

Swede Peter Hedblom thought that as Woods got closer – he predicted two short - the media focus would become so much more than it already is.

“He’s already under so much more pressure than anybody else that you wonder how many more years he will play,” said Hedblom. “I don’t think he will go on for another 10.”

Dutchman Robert-Jan Derksen said he played with Woods in Dubai and “got the impression” that on the very day Woods beats Nicklaus he will retire from golf and go on to other things.

England’s Barry Lane, on the other hand, believes the 31-year-old American has the hunger to go on and on – and predicts a final figure of 28 majors.

“He’s averaged more than one major a year since he turned pro and I don’t see that changing,” commented Lane. “I watched him in Dubai practising for ages and sweating like you wouldn’t believe.

“It was fantastic. Every shot was hit with purpose and he was so focused. His fitness is such a big thing.”

Graeme McDowell said: “I think it might be 19 and out of here.” But Austrian Markus Brier stated: “I say 25. Because he is playing only about 22 tournaments a year and everybody else at least 25 I think he can go on a lot longer.”

Australian Peter Senior said: “Twenty. Starting a family does change things a little bit, but it didn’t affect Nicklaus. We all know that if Tiger plays his best nobody else can touch him.”

David Howell’s answer was: “Nineteen. He’s made Nicklaus’s 18 the goal of a lifetime and I think it could take the wind out of his sails when he gets past him.”

There might be some element of wish fulfilment about Woods quitting at the top, of course. It would make it easier for others to accomplish their own dreams.

Yet Woods, with an unbelievable record of winning 12 times out of 12 when he has led with a round to go, still loses far more than he wins.

It is a question of being in position to take advantage when he is not at the top of the leaderboard.

Johnson won on an Augusta course considered too long for him, the big-hitting yet unpredictable Cabrera on an Oakmont lay-out where straight hitting was thought to be the key.

While neither is a European, of course, it offers hope to all those hoping to end the eight-year drought.

Padraig Harrington, Justin Rose, Paul Casey, Luke Donald, Niclas Fasth and, yes, Montgomerie would appear to be the six with the best chance.