Springfield, N.J. — Tiger Woods stuck to his major-championship routine Tuesday, splitting the silence of dawn with a tee shot at 6:15 a.m. for a practice round at the PGA Championship with limited distractions.
He finished in a little over three hours, ate breakfast, spent more than an hour on the practice range, then showed up for his pre-tournament interview. When it was over, he was in no hurry to leave.
Woods leaned forward, resting his chin on his hands as he chatted with reporters for 20 minutes about perceptions of his game and the criticism he took for changing his swing.
Clearly, two major championships have put Woods at ease.
"Some people still think I'm having a bad year," he said. "Even in my hometown, I go to the supermarket, and people say, 'I wish you would play better.'
"Yeah. Me, too," he said in mock response.
Woods already has a green jacket and a claret jug. All he lacks going into the PGA Championship is that aura of invincibility that two majors no longer buy.
Woods can't make history at Baltusrol, only match it.
It was five years ago that he overwhelmed the PGA Tour by capturing the final three majors of the season, putting himself so far ahead of the rest of the pack that some knew they were playing for second before they had a chance to hit their first tee shot.
"He was unbeatable because he probably believed he was unbeatable," Padraig Harrington said.
A playoff victory at the Masters in April, followed by a wire-to-wire victory last month at the British Open, again leaves Woods on the cusp of capturing three Grand Slam events in one year.
He has the players' attention. He never lost their respect.
Tiger Woods tees off on the 18th hole during a practice round for the PGA Championship. Woods played Tuesday at Baltusrol in Springfield, N.J.
But no one is conceding anything to him anymore.
"The atmosphere is nowhere near what it was in 2000 because I had won the U.S. Open by 15 shots and the British Open by eight," Woods said. "On top of that, I've done this before. I guess from some of the guys I've talked to this week in the media, just the novelty factor is not there anymore. I've already done it.
"Hopefully, I can do it again."
He clearly is the player to beat at Baltusrol, which plays right into his powerful hands. The Lower Course, where Jack Nicklaus twice set scoring records at the U.S. Open, stretches nearly 7,400 yards at a par 70. The fairways are so soft from rain and humid August afternoons that the ball rolls only a couple of yards after it lands.
"It does eliminate a lot of the guys who can't hit the ball long and high," Woods said.
Still, there is a difference in how Woods is perceived by his peers.
Two majors alone should be enough to signal that he is back on top of his game, or close enough to make others wonder if he can be even better. But there are other signs that he is mortal after all, from the cut he missed in Dallas to the putts he missed under pressure at Pinehurst to the beating he took from Vijay Singh in the third round of the Buick Open two weeks ago.
"In 2000, he was a phenomenal player that nobody could touch," Harrington said. "Now, he's still a great player, but he's probably not as untouchable as he was."
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