Woods rates 2006 better than 2000

By Brian Keogh

Tiger Woods clinched his 11th title of the year at the Target World Challenge and confessed: This is better than 2000.

The world No 1 has been virtually unstoppable since he missed the cut in the US Open in June - winning eight of his last 11 strokeplay starts, including two majors.

Woods won the 'Tiger Slam' in 2001 - adding the Masters to his wins at the 2000 US Open, British Open and US PGA.

But he believes the his performances in 2006 have been ever better considering that he had to deal with the death of his father Earl in May.

Woods said: "If you compare the two years, I think this year would have to be better because of things l've been dealing with off the golf course. In 2000 I didn't have to deal with that.

"I won my first two events of the year, got off to a quick start. But hey, life is full of mysteries and you've got to deal with things as they come.

"Who's to know that if Dad didn't struggle and end up passing that I wouldn't have played that well in the summer?"

In 2000, Woods won 11 individual titles worldwide, including the last three majors and the WGC-World Cup with David Duval.

This season he has been just as impressive, clicking into gear in the second round of the Western Open in July, just three weeks after missing the cut at Winged Foot.

But he saw his season turn around after a magical practice session following the first round of the Western Open at Cog Hill, where he finished second.

Woods explained: "I said, you know what, let's forget everything that's happened.

"Let's work on what we did at the beginning of the year that won the first two events and let's get everything organized, and we did that in one afternoon, and all of a sudden it turned around, and boom.

"I had played three consecutive poor rounds, two in the US Open and one at the Western before that practice session.

"No other practice session was more important than that one. I hit balls for about three hours out there and I had about an hour when I really hit it good.

"I had every shape shot, height, spin - whatever you wanted. That's what you are always looking for. Then I built upon that for the rest of the year."

Since the US Open, his first tournament after the death of his father, Woods has not finished worse than second in 11 strokeplay events around the world and win eight of them.

He added: "It was nice to put a lot of the pieces together and just go out there and play. To win as many tournaments as I did from mid-summer until now was an awful lot of fun."

US Open champion Geoff Ogilvy, who finished four shots behind Woods, reckons the world No 1 is capable of winning the Grand Slam in a calendar year.

The Australian said: "He always seems to play well under expectation. I think Tiger should win all four majors in a year.

"It was only 10 years ago people were thinking it was absolutely far-fetched to win two, now you've got him winning four.

"When he did it in 2000 and 2001, he was playing some pretty decent golf.

"I don't think he's actually playing as good as he was then now."