Golfers might call it the 89th PGA Championship, but promotional posters hype this year’s final Major event like a boxing match — ”Tiger vs Southern Hills”.
Forget the other 155 starters. Forget the fact that first-time Major champions have captured this year’s three prior Majors, taken five of six prior Majors at Southern Hills Country Club and won seven of the past 12 PGA Championships.
In this corner, defending champion Woods seeks his 13th Major triumph in quest of Jack Nicklaus’s career record of 18. Woods won his fourth title of the year on Sunday at the World Golf Championships Bridgestone Invitational.
”I feel like I’m in better shape heading into this one than I did going into the last Major,” said Woods, who was 12th last month at the British Open after sharing runner-up honours at the Masters and US Open.
”You never want to be shut out. You never want to have a year where you don’t win a Major.”
Against Woods stands a 71-year-old course that has denied the superstar twice. Woods shared 21st in the 1996 Tour Championship here as a rookie and tied for 12th at the 2001 US Open, his first Major loss after the ”Tiger Slam”.
”It’s definitely one of the best tests we will ever play,” Woods said. ”You have to place the golf ball correctly, off the tees as well as firing at the pins. If you’re not hitting the ball well you will definitely be exposed.”
Fitness flaws will play a role as well with scorching heat and a devilishly difficult course turning Southern Hills into Southern Hell for golf’s greatest players.
Excessive heat warnings are in the forecast through to Sunday with temperatures expected to reach 39 degrees Celsius and dip no 27 Celsius at night.
The hottest daily temperatures ever recorded at a Major golf event were here when temperatures averaged above 37 Celsius at the 1970 PGA Championship.
But Woods’s workout regimen keeps him fit and trim for just such endurance tests, an edge that could have him near his best on the back nine on Sunday when rivals have often wilted under his pressure.
”One of the reasons I train as hard as I do — you go all out every day,” Woods said.
Denis Watson, the 51-year-old Zimbabwe-born winner of the PGA Senior Championship in May, will combat the heat as best he can.
”There ain’t no beatin’ the heat this week,” Watson said. ”You just suck it up, try not to do too much. You’ve really got to focus on your shots.”
Thirty Major winners are entered, including three-time Major champions Vijay Singh, Ernie Els and Phil Mickelson.
First-timers won the season’s first three Majors, including Irishman Padraig Harrington at last month’s British Open, Argentina’s Angel Cabrera at the US Open and American Zach Johnson at the Masters.
There are 66 non-US players from 23 nations here, the largest international contingent in PGA Championship history.
Europeans went 31 Majors without a victory before Harrington snapped the drought and could end a massive PGA Championship drought by winning here.
Since the first championship in 1916, only three Europeans have won — the last being Scottish-born Tommy Armour in 1930.
Could this be Spaniard Sergio Garcia’s breakthrough after his near-miss anguish at Carnoustie?
”My head is starting to go a little bit more where I want it to be and hopefully I can get it all sorted out and have a chance,” Garcia said. — Sapa-AFP