Photo: © Harry How/Allsport Tiger Woods two previous experiences at Southern Hills have proven to be a frustrating experience.

OK, you make the call. Does Southern Hills, where the PGA Championship will be played this week, suit the considerable talents of Tiger Woods? Or is it a course where he is never going to play championship-caliber golf, just because the considerable doglegs, angles, etc., of the layout are not conducive to Tiger making use of his considerable length off the tee? The two contrasting points have been debated for more than a decade now, ever since Woods began his meteoric professional career. In that abbreviated opening year (1996), Tiger played Southern Hills and certainly didn't scare anybody with his play. And he tried again in 2001, when he was riding the crest of his Tiger Slam, and again laid an egg.

Photo: © Donald Miralle /Allsport Tiger Woods found frustration in everything in 2001 including his putting.

And judging by the scores alone, the 2001 U.S. Open certainly wasn't a bad tournament. He shot 69-69 on the weekend, a score bettered by only one player and tied by three others. But he had shot 74 in the opening round, a round interrupted on Thursday by steady downpours and completed on Friday by more than half the players, including Tiger. Woods was 3-over-par after the first 10 holes and finished with a 4-over score of 74, hitting just eight fairways in that round and suffering a double bogey at No. 9.

That was the tournament that ended his Tiger Slam, when he had won four consecutive majors. He had won five times in the last six tournaments coming into Southern Hills that year. Again, though, it took only one bad round to send him reeling down to defeat – the opening round.

After 36 holes, Tiger was nine shots back. Was it the fault of the golf course? Could have been, certainly. Tiger left a little doubt, though, when he sized up his first two rounds. "To be honest with you," he said, "I've pulled a couple, I've flared a couple, hit a few more right, and a few long, a few short. I've got the whole gamut covered.

"That's just the way it is sometimes. Sometimes you've just got to laugh at yourself."

Photo: © J.D. CubanJ.D. Cuban /Allsport Tiger Woods first played Southern Hills in 1996 Tour Championship.

Nonetheless, and for whatever reason, Woods has not played winning golf at Southern Hills. And at the U.S. Open in 2001, a large part of the reason was the side-by-side greens of Nos. 9 and 18. Both were positioned and angled in such a way that golfers had difficulty keeping balls on the putting surfaces. But all golfers had to play them, and some handled the challenge better than Tiger. Tiger, in fact, wound up playing the 9th in 4-over-par for the week.

However, both greens have been considerably flattened for the Open to make much more accepting of approach shots. And into the arena will come Woods without the emotional baggage of a course on which he just can't win.

"I don't think you can really say that it doesn't suit me," he said of the course as a whole following the 2001 experience, "because I didn't really hit the ball the way I did on the weekend. If I would have done that at the beginning of the week, I might have given myself a better chance of winning."

Also, says Tiger, he was entering a span on tournaments when he didn't play particularly well for a period of a couple of months. After the U.S. Open, he finished tied for 25th in the British Open and tied for 29th in the PGA. He doesn't particularly agree that you should even talk about Tulsa as a place where "Tiger can't play the course."

"Southern Hills is a place I've only played one time," he said. "I can't really count '96, because off the golf course I wasn't really there. As far as '01, I didn't really hit the ball good. I wasn't hitting the ball well going into it. For some reason, I don't know why, I won The Masters that year, but after that, post-Masters, I didn't really hit the ball very good."

Photo: © Stuart Franklin/Getty Images Tiger Woods in a practice round at Southern Hills on Tuesday.

So, can he or can't he? He's been so far out of the lead after a couple of rounds that he never could compete for the win – in either tournament. There's no question but that Southern Hills is not ideal for him. But the fact remains that Tiger has won 58 tournaments and 12 majors, and certainly a lot have come on courses that were not "ideal for him."

"That's the beauty of our game. That's why we play," Woods said simply. "That's one of the reasons why we all play, because you're going to have days when you're not going to have it. When you do have it, and you do play well, you appreciate those days."

A lot of things have to happen in order to win, says Tiger, including a whole lot of positive breaks. "I haven't really got the breaks that I've needed, and in order to win you're going to have to get lucky. You can't complain about it. You've got to accept it and move on and understand that it all evens out in the end."

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