Woods Gets Closer ... to Last Major of Year

He’s taking the week off to get ready for next week’s PGA Championship at Whistling Straits, and unless Tiger Woods was just whistling in dire straits, he said once again this week that he was not far off from winning again.

Of course, we all know how long that has been. Woods’ last victory in a full-field, stroke-play event was the Western Open 13 months ago.

He has won once this year, at the Match Play Championship at La Costa in February. Vijay Singh has already won four times and seems to be on the verge of replacing Woods as the player of the year for 2004.

Unless something happens.

Relaxing after his “Battle at The Bridges” prime-time exhibition Monday night, Woods repeated a familiar theme, that winning even one major this year makes it a great year.

The good news for Woods is that he has one more chance to make it a great year and it starts next week on what promises to be a windy Wisconsin layout at Whistling Straits, which hugs the shores of Lake Michigan.

Woods hasn’t won a major since the 2002 U.S. Open -- a span of nine majors -- and if he is actually going to end that streak, he has some work to do. Not that it can’t be done.

Just to be helpful, here are 10 suggestions for him on how to win the PGA Championship:

1. Hit the ball straight.

2. Do not, repeat, do not spend too much time in the bunkers. There are an estimated 1,400 of them at Whistling Straits, which is, what, about 1,200 more than any other course in the world?

3. Think about switching to that new, 460-cc Nike Ignite driver you have been trying out recently. Your driving is so much better now than when you started the year, you might as well go all the way and start knocking golf balls with a club head the size of a toaster oven. Just make sure you hit it straight at the Straits.

4. Take Pete Dye, who designed Whistling Straits, out for dinner and find out where the railroad cars are buried. This is pure fact. Dye didn’t have earth moved to finish Whistling Straits, he got a bunch of railroad cars and covered them with dirt to create mounds.

5. Do not even think about picking up the phone to call Butch Harmon. After all the grief you’ve taken for being “in denial” about your swing and for not asking Harmon back as your swing coach, the last thing you need to do is look wishy-washy. Have your caddie, Steve Williams, again ready to place your bag in front of cameras videotaping your swing at the range. Williams knows what to do with cameras. And if you want to go to Las Vegas, fine, enjoy the tables as usual; don’t go see Harmon.

6. Don’t get too upset with the fairways. They’re not the usual, buzz-cut, perfect, PGA Tour kind of fairways. They’re not as crisply shorn, so the ball could nestle down in the grass. This can be extremely annoying, so rise above the grass, even if the ball you just hit does not.

7. The course is 7,590 yards, meaning it stretches about halfway to Milwaukee, an hour or so away. The greens have a lot of undulations, the rough will be up, and if the wind blows it could get real ugly in a hurry out there, with a lot of players missing greens. Your short game, still the best in the business, should bail you out.

8. The Ryder Cup is coming up and this is the last chance for a lot of guys, such as John Daly, to either earn enough points to make the team or impress Hal Sutton enough that he’ll use a captain’s pick on them. Here’s the deal: Don’t worry about the Ryder Cup and your 5-8-2 record in it any more than your 0-9 streak in majors.

9. See No. 1.

10. Stop being so darned pleasant to your peers. Glare at them every once in a while, crank up that Tiger intimidation factor thing again. Yes, winning would be the best way to accomplish that. Now, with a little well-thought out advice, you’re already on your way.