Ready to dominate ... again

~ Tiger Woods appears ready for another one of his runs.

MEDINAH, Ill. -- All signs point toward Tiger Woods being ready to go on another roll.

His victory in the PGA Championship was his third straight on the PGA Tour, the fourth time he has put together such a winning streak. Two of them were majors, and he has played his last three tournaments in 60 under par.

Next up is Firestone, where he already has won four times and is the defending champion.

But perhaps the scariest aspect of Woods' five-shot victory at Medinah for his 12th major is that he is nothing like the player who survived a scare from Sergio Garcia seven years earlier.

The new Tiger might be even better.

And it has more to do with the space between his ears than whatever is going on with his swing.

"If you compare it to how I was here in '99 versus how I am in 2006, it's just a better understanding of how to get more out of my round and how to handle the emotions better," Woods said Sunday evening. "That's just through seven more years of experience."

It's easy to define his dominance by numbers alone.

Still one week away from his 10-year anniversary as a professional, Woods already has won 51 times to tie Billy Casper for sixth on the all-time PGA Tour chart. He has won 12 of his 40 majors since turning pro, a staggering rate of 30 percent. That puts him two-thirds of the way toward the 18 majors Jack Nicklaus won, the modern benchmark of greatness in golf.

Nicklaus won his 18 majors by 44 shots. Woods has won his 12 majors by 56 shots.

The most meaningful number of all might be 30 -- his age.

By all accounts, Woods hasn't even hit his prime.

He often is asked to compare his game to previous years, such as his record-breaking season in 2000 when he won nine times and three majors, then making it four straight majors with a Masters title in 2001.

Asked if he was playing as well now as he was then, Woods didn't hesitate.

"Yes, yes," he said. "With the experience of seven years added to that, understanding how to get myself around a golf course and how to control things and all the different shots I've learned, yeah, I feel like things are pretty darn good right now."

It sure looks familiar to everyone else.

"He's on a pretty good roll right now," Chris DiMarco said. "When he's putting the ball in play, it's pretty scary."

The popular thought Sunday morning was that every streak had to end, and Woods was ripe to lose a 54-hole lead in a major for the first time. He was tied with Luke Donald, who felt as though he had nothing to lose.

But from the opening tee shot that split the middle of the fairway, followed by a 7-iron that stopped 10 feet away for birdie, it was just the opposite. Woods was the first to hit into every green except on the par 5s, and he applied enormous pressure.

"You would think going to the first tee that he would feel the pressure because everyone is expecting him to win," DiMarco said. "And it's the exact opposite. The guy playing with him feels the most pressure. But it's the fact you have to go face-to-face with Tiger, and he's a pretty intimidating guy."

The genius of Woods is winning so many different ways.

It goes beyond the last two majors with conditions that could not have made for a greater contrast. The fairways of Royal Liverpool were so brown and parched that Woods used 2-iron to navigate his way around the bunkers. The greens at Medinah were so lush that Woods knew he would have to make birdies to keep pace, and he did just that.

"When he won the U.S. Open (at Pebble Beach), lapping the field there, I was pretty impressed," David Toms said. "The way he's played as of late, you have an argument for him being just as good as he was then. I think the guy has the best mind in the game, regardless of what his swing is all about. He can beat people even when his swing is not that great."

Earl Woods, who died in May of cancer, once said watching his son play golf was like seeing Rembrandt paint.

"We are watching a canvas," he said in an interview during Woods' 2000 season. "Every week, you see a move with the brush you have never seen, and the result is startling. And the painting comes to life every week, more and more. It will be more clearly defined 10 years from now."

That would have been 2010, and it's hard to imagine where Woods will be then.

The PGA Championship gave him five victories this year, the seventh time in 10 full years on tour he has done that. At this rate, he will match Nicklaus' major record in five years, and there doesn't seem anyone capable of challenging him on a regular basis.

Phil Mickelson was on the cusp of a third straight major at the U.S. Open two months ago at Winged Foot until he chopped up the final hole. In the final two majors, he finished a combined 25 shots behind Woods.

Garcia was one shot behind Woods in 1999, six shots behind this year. He is losing ground, even at age 26, especially having played in the final group with Woods at a major and never having much of a chance.

Like others, he believes Woods will spit up a lead in the majors one of these years.

"He's not going to be 68 years old and in the final round of a major and tied for the lead and he wins," Garcia said.

Maybe the most daunting projection came from Ernie Els last month at the British Open, after finishing five shots behind. Els has been a runner-up two times in the majors to Woods, and five other times in regular tournaments around the world.

"He knows how to win these things," Els said at Hoylake. "And it's going to be tough to beat him now."

It was never easy then.