longest test for tiger

By Mark Garrod, PA Sport Golf Correspondent

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Tiger Woods won the Open taking the driver out of his bag just once in 72 holes - and playing partner Nick Faldo reckoned that was a mistake - but he will not be able to employ the same tactic this coming week.

The last major of the year, the United States PGA championship, is being held on the longest course ever used for one of golf's biggest four events.

Medinah Country Club near Chicago, where Woods held off Sergio Garcia to lift the same title seven years ago, has been lengthened to 7,561 yards, with three of the par fives over 575 yards and only one of the par fours under 400 yards.

It is 25 yards longer than previous record-holder Whistling Straits two years ago, while Augusta was stretched to 7,445 yards for this April's Masters.

"I think the players will notice a different golf course from 1999," said course renovator Rees Jones. As well as the extra distance a total of 300 trees have been removed, many of the bunkers re-sculptured and deepened and greens changed.

Defending champion Phil Mickelson, who in the starkest contrast to Woods won at Augusta using two drivers, joked earlier in the year after hearing details of the new lay-out: "I'm thinking about coming to the PGA Championship as a spectator instead of a player.

"I have a lot of fond memories of Medinah. It was the first major championship I ever played in (the US Open in 1990 where as an amateur he finished 29th) and it started an incredible run of zero for 46 in the majors!"

Since then the world number two has won three, but the world number one is the man of the moment again.

After his 50th US Tour win last Sunday - achieved with four rounds of 66 - Woods was asked when he was last playing as well heading to a major.

The answer was just one word. "Western," he said.

Two weeks before he triumphed at Hoylake Woods was runner-up at the Western Open. So that makes it second, first, first in his last three tournaments and if you remove his missed cut at the US Open in June - he was still grieving the loss of his father - his last six major finishes have been first, second, first, fourth, third and first.

That is what makes it so hard to predict an end to the seven-year European drought in the majors, especially at an event where the last winner from the Continent was Tommy Armour in 1930.

But there are over 30 playing at Medinah and they will be desperate to improve on the performance in the Open.

Garcia and Carl Pettersson were the only two in the top 10 - and that was literally a major disappointment for the Spaniard as he was second only a shot behind Woods entering the last round.

A return now to the course where he not only ran the sport's greatest player that close for 72 holes rather than just 54, but also played one of the most memorable shots in decades, ought to act as a spur for Garcia.

Others, though, might not be relishing a 7,561-yard test quite as much.