GREAT EXPECTATIONS

From the moment Tiger Woods first placed his Nike footies on the PGA Tour a decade ago, the world has been waiting for someone to step on them.

Someone to challenge him. Someone to pressure him. Someone to even just distract him.

Wednesday, on the eve of his 2007 debut at the Buick Invitational here, Woods acknowledged that that person was coming.

It’s not Phil Mickelson, although this person will whine like he does.

It’s not John Daly, although this person will chug bottles like he does.

It’s not even Jesper Parnevik, although this person will dress like he does.

This challenger is scheduled to show up in July, maybe in the middle of the British Open, and will make Woods’ knees knock like a North Sea gale.

We don’t yet know what Woods will call this person. But we know what this person will call Woods.

It is one of the most powerful words in the English language, a word that will change his life as no green jacket ever could:

“Daddy.”

Tiger Woods and wife, Elin, are having their first child and, oh, baby, let’s see him win a Grand Slam now.

With weight on his eyes, and colic in his ears, and rice cereal on his tongue.

With formula in his bag, and pacifiers in his pocket, and a car seat in his Buick.

I’ve played golf, and I’ve buckled three young children into car seats, and only one of those two activities has ever made me collapse into a screaming, crying heap.

Tiger Woods will soon learn which one. In learning it, he will love it, but he will never be the same, and he knows it.

“It’s an amazing thing to hear news like that,” Woods said during his first public remarks about the pending delivery. “Usually with golf, you’re just preparing for the here and now, and all of a sudden you look a little bit further out in the future.”

For the first time, at 31, Woods’ future will be about something other than him. And for the first time, the future will be directly tied to his past.

If he is going to be the sort of attentive, full-time father his own legendary father was, how is record-setting golf ever going to have a chance?

“Yeah, of course it’s going to change,” he acknowledged. “Our priorities do change. You’re bringing a new life into this world, and it’s 100% dependent on you for survival. So, yeah, it does change.”

From pampered to Pampers.

“I don’t sleep a whole lot to begin with, so that will be easy,” Woods said. “I think it’ll be interesting to try and figure out your tournament schedule, preparations, my commitments that I have to my sponsors, to try and balance that as well as with adding a new family member.”

From caddies to strollers.

“I think that’s going to be a challenge, not only myself but for Elin, as well, to try and balance everything out together,” he said.

Already he has fired a warning shot about possible schedule changes, and, to directors of golf tournaments everywhere, it sounds like a teething cry.

When asked what he would do if his baby’s birth “crossed into a major,” he shrugged.

“It if happens, it happens,” he said. “If it crosses over, it crosses over. That’s the most important thing, not another golf tournament. I just wouldn’t go.”

Woods said the baby was due in July, meaning the defense of the last two British Open championships is immediately in question. But the new father already has an answer, the right answer.

“Just don’t go,” he said. “If she’s going to have it during the week of the Open, I just don’t go.”

With 12 major titles, Woods is considered a lock to surpass Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18. But Woods should now realize that, in one way, he will never catch him.

Because Nicklaus won those championships while raising five children.

“You look at Nicklaus, having so many kids at such a young age, and he only got better and better,” said Mickelson, probably the tour’s most famous father with three children who run to greet him after big wins. “That would be difficult if that were to happen with Tiger. Very difficult.”

This is indeed a challenge far deeper than any U.S. Open rough, a test far longer than any par-five, but one that will be more rewarding than a lifetime of aces.

For confirmation, Woods need look no farther than the practice tee in his tiny garage, the classroom for the parenting lessons taught by his late father Earl.

“He was always there,” Woods said. “He was always there if I wanted to talk to him about anything and everything.... He would stop what he was doing and talk to me about anything.”

Woods can afford the type of child care that covers diaper changes and crib assemblies.

But if he intends to stop what he is doing and be there for his child, well, the most intense and devoted golfer on the planet will be a different golfer indeed.

“It’s not the easiest thing,” Mickelson said. “But it’s not impossible.”

And, as Daly noted, it could have been even harder.

“I wanted to be his child,” Daly said with a laugh. “If I was a child I wouldn’t play golf anymore, I’d be sitting in a boat somewhere spending all Daddy’s money. I’ve been trying to get him to adopt me for the last five years, but he wouldn’t do it.”

While the baby thankfully will not be a Daly, Woods said he is uncertain whether it will be a boy or a girl, but he has seen photos.

“The ultrasound, it was pretty cool,” he said, smiling. “I know it’s my kid because it looked like he was telling me he was No. 1 in my heart.”

Wait until he feels the real gestures, the tiny kisses, the huge hugs, little arms stretched around giant necks, little hands smothered in giant fingers. Tiger Woods won’t have to play another round of golf for the rest of his life to feel like No. 1.

About six months from now, the greatest golfer in the world will be the most challenged golfer in the world. Here’s hoping he remembers he also will be the luckiest.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.