Tour will find Tiger was just catnapping

He hasn't looked so beatable to so many in a long time.

Tiger Woods didn't win a major last year for the first time since 1998. He didn't top the money list after doing so the last four seasons, slid from first place to 26th in the often-telling greens-hit-in-regulation department, and all the way down to 167th in finding the fairway off the tee, auditioning more drivers along the way than Roger Penske.

Plus, he just turned 28 and added a fiancee.

Maybe that's why a brave few are tugging on Superman's cape again as the PGA Tour kicks off a new season with the Mercedes Championship on the seaside cliffs of Maui.

"Things have changed a little bit," defending champ Ernie Els said. "I think the 'Tiger effect' is not as strong as it used to be. I think guys go into a week and feel if they play their games, it might be good enough."

A handful of other golfers said much the same thing, hardly forgetting what happened the last time they did. So either they know something they didn't know then, or Woods is about to lay down one hell of a season. Davis Love III couldn't be sure which.

"We're all right there. There's a big group that's chasing (Woods)," Love said, then added, "He knows it. He likes it that way. He prefers it that way."

It sounds crazy to talk about a golfer stepping up after a season in which he won five times and captured Player of the Year honors. But that's exactly what Woods is being challenged to do, and he has nobody to blame but himself.

He's won at least five tournaments in five of the seven full seasons he's been on Tour. Only one other player has won that many times in a season -- Nick Price won six in 1994 -- in the last 24 years. That part of Woods' job came to seem so routine that the bar was raised a long time ago. Now it's five wins, including at least one major.

If expectations are the only measure, then the gap between Woods and the rest of the field hasn't narrowed one inch. Plenty of golfers drive it as far as he does, and over the last three years, a posse of his pursuers made good on their promise to get better, stronger, healthier and tougher. Some enlisted swing gurus and psychologists, some switched to diet soda and high-protein shakes. All of them got new equipment.

None of it is going to make a difference.

Remember that cute story about the young Tiger Woods taping a list of Jack Nicklaus' accomplishments to his bedroom wall and scratching off each milestone as he arrived there? He's still comfortably ahead. He has eight majors to Nicklaus' seven and 39 tour wins, 10 more than Jack. What makes the comparison even more interesting from here on out is the question of longevity.

At this same point in his career, Nicklaus went through two seasons and 12 majors without winning one. Then again, he already had a wife and kids and the domestic half of his life in order, an accomplishment that Woods is just beginning to work at. But if his competition is counting on distractions or complacency slowing Woods down, they haven't been paying attention.

For all the ways the gap is narrowing, the only distance a golfer really has to negotiate is the space between his ears, and Woods still has no peers. He's not talking as tough as he has in the past, but it's dangerous to confuse restraint with humility.

In seasons past, when Els and Vijay Singh and Phil Mickelson crashed down the stretch of a major that Woods was leading, he often was asked about the intimidation factor. "Go ask them," Woods replied with a cool stare, and there were nods all around.

Now, when reporters brief Woods on what passes for trash talk out on the tour, he is a little more expansive.

"I look at it this way: If I'm playing well, I'll take my chances against anybody. That's the way I've always felt," he said. "When I'm playing well, I'm tough to beat."

It must have killed Woods to have to say even that much. Like Michael Jordan, he never lacks for motivation and now he has plenty. When Woods was at the top of his game, it was making history or carving the heart out of the toughest golf courses in the world. Now that he's supposed to be in a slump, it's just a matter of adjusting his site.

The rest of golf had its chance to catch up while Woods' game napped, but it was a mistake to pull his tail. They're about to find out they've awakened a sleeping Tiger.

Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press.