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Having said that, with the statisticians and historians who point to difficult scoring conditions and the tournament’s tricky trait of presenting the most unfancied champions over the years, a win for Woods will require something of an inhuman effort.
On the scoring front, of the six Majors seen at the Oak Hill, only 10 players have finished with a below par score. This includes Nicklaus’s win in 1980 on this same Rochester setup when he was the only golfer with a sub-par total.
Moreover, the likes of Shaun Micheel, Ye Yang and Rich Beem – a list that may have done little else (in fact just 18 pro wins among themselves) throughout their careers, have a PGA Championship feather to boast on their caps.
Tiger, on the other hand, has a lot to prove on this course that is anything but similar to his trademark stomping grounds. Achieving pars on the back-9 remains a challenge, especially in countering the ever-so-tormenting slopes. And by the looks of it, one still cannot put one’s money on Woods’ vulnerable putting performances.
Woods himself is wary of the situation. “Oak Hill is going to be a course where we’re going to have to make a lot of pars, there’s no doubt. If you have an opportunity to make a birdie, you’d better because there aren’t a whole lot of opportunities to make them. There are a few holes that you can be aggressive on and maybe a few pin locations that if you have the right situation you can be pretty aggressive to it, but otherwise it’s going to be a tough course,” he said.
Yet when it comes down to teeing off on Thursday, Tiger would want to give it a realistic shot. If Big Phil could seal the Open on the back of a win at the Scottish Open on the tournament eve, Woods does have more than enough striking craft to take with him the Championship.
While he may have a tendency to portray otherwise, Woods may not yet be ready to accept the virtue of winning as a mere symbolic crown. Not until he passes Nicklaus; not until he at least ends this barren run of collecting mere consolations on the tour.
And in a career nurtured, thrived and conjured on the ambitions engulfed with greed of limitless silverware, the quest for No. 15 – ignored or forsaken momentarily – does hold its importance until he finally gets his hands on it.
