It's Just How Tiger Rolls

Every Monday during the PGA Tour season, Monday Pin Placement will run as a wrap-up of the weekend's action. Basically, we'll focus on what you missed while you were out grinding on the putting green.

Golf writers like myself don't have a lot of things better to do than discuss Tiger Woods. He is to us what George W. Bush was to Fox News, Sarah Palin was to The Daily Show and Brangelina is to Perez Hilton. Dissecting every Tiger move is what keeps us ticking, and for good measure, because most of the time it seems Tiger is the only person worth talking about.

This season has been a different one for Woods. One week he's the world's biggest mystery, constantly sticking that right hand out to warn spectators that another Tiger bomb is heading for the gallery. The next week, he's absolutely splendid on the links, firing mid-irons with the precision we have grown to love since the 1997 Masters.

His win this Sunday at the Buick Open was special for a number of reasons (lowest score to par since the '07 Tour Championship, first time Tiger has posted two rounds of 65 or better since that same tournament two years ago), but it showed just how dominant Woods has been the last two years.

Swallow this for a moment -- since August 5, 2007, Tiger has won 54 percent of his tournaments, an unheard of number on the PGA Tour. (To compare it for a moment, the world No. 2, Phil Mickelson, has won 13 percent of his tournaments.)

Last week, when I wrote a story highlighting the travails of Tiger since coming back from knee surgery, I noted that no matter what happens in the coming weeks, the PGA Championship is a must-win for Woods.

"Long-term it is only one more major, but in the short term it is a "must-win" for Woods. If he can't pull this out, he will have to answer plenty of questions about how Tiger is going through his longest major drought (six majors) since his 10-tournament drought between the British in '02 to the Masters in '05."

I still believe this is true. No matter his ability to roll over a less than stellar field at the Warwick Hills, the sports world only measures Tiger by his major wins, as unfair as that might seem. That being said, his putter was alive at the Buick and that is always the tool that can make or break a Woods round. Ryan Wilson pointed out on Sunday, after Tiger claimed his fourth victory of the season, that "Woods will continue to tweak his swing in preparation for the final major of the year, but if he continues to miss fairways by 20 and 30 yards, he won't have a shot at Hazeltine, which will play 7,674 yards, the longest set up in major championship history."

I couldn't agree with this more. There are Tiger tournaments in which he blitzes the field with beautiful and skilled domination, and then there are weeks, like this past one, where Tiger doesn't have his best stuff from tee to green but lets his short game do the talking. Too many times this week, Woods would find himself in the rough, behind trees or, as the case on Saturday on the 18th, in a completely different fairway. If that is the game he brings to Hazeltine, I don't think he can compete as well as he did at the Buick. The conditions will be too tough, the field will be too stacked and the scrambling will be too lengthy.

Knowing Tiger, that sentiment will probably be proved moot. He is in the field at this week's WGC-Bridgestone Invitational at a course he's won at six times. If the world continues to spin around the sun, and water is still wet, Woods will be heading to Hazeltine with back-to-back wins.

Tiger is the only person that could have run away with this victory. We can only wait with excited anticipation at the hope that Woods can run off three straight before the PGA Tour hits the playoffs. A week ago, 2009 might have gone down as a disappointing year for Tiger. If he keeps this up, it might just go down as one of his most consistent yet. Funny how seven days can change things.