SHOWDOWN IN SAN FRANCISCO

It’s Rory v Tiger in the first golf Major of the year

TIGER WOODS claims he has planned to peak for the Majors this year – starting at the US PGA tomorrow.

The 15-time Major champion has played only one event since February because of a back injury and then lockdown.

And the 44-year-old, who finished 40th at The Memorial last month, admitted the cool temperatures in San Francisco will affect his swing, while the lack of crowds is going to be “very different” on the municipal course at Harding Park. After no Major golf for 13 months, the new calendar will see the US PGA followed by the US Open next month and the Masters in November.

And world No.15 Woods said: “I’ve been trying to prepare for the three, trying to figure out my schedule and the things I need to work on for each Major venue.

“It’s just in a different calendar order and different time of year. But this is a big run for us coming up here. I’ve been gearing up for this and looking forward to the challenges of not only this week, but obviously the playoffs, a US Open and then the Masters. It’s just that, competitively, I haven’t played that much, but I am very enthusiastic about some of the changes I’ve made and so that’s been positive.”

The four-time US PGA winner arrived for this event as Masters champion last May – and missed the cut. “I celebrated winning the Masters for quite some time and came to Bethpage and played awful,” he recalled.

“My game is better than it was going into that PGA and, hopefully, I can put it together.”

Woods, who spent two years at nearby Stanford University, has won at Harding Park at the 2005 WGC-AMEX Championships and the 2009 Presidents Cup (left) when he went 5-0.

Writer Mark Twain famously said “the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco” and temperatures are not forecast to rise above 23C this week. “I won’t have the same range of motion as I would back home in Florida where it’s 95 (35C) every day,” said Woods, who will tee off with Rory Mcilroy (above). “That’s just the way it is. The ball never goes very far here.”

Asked whether he knows the week before a Major if he is going to win, Woods replied: “There have probably only been two or three times where I knew that all I had to do was keep my heartbeat going and I was going to win. In ’97, I felt pretty good at Augusta, then Pebble Beach in 2000 and then at St Andrews the same year.”

Asked if he can win this week, Woods smiled and replied: “Of course.”