Firestone should put Woods in comfort zone

This week's Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone South in Akron will be the best measuring stick yet on how far Tiger Woods' game has fallen from its glory-day heights since relevations first emerged about his marital infidelities.

If Woods, the defending champion of the World Golf Championship event, can't finish in the top five this week on a course he has dominated in the past, it will speak volumes about just how much his game has been eroded by the fallout of his sex scandal. It also will add another big dent in his once seemingly impenetrable aura of invincibility.

Woods has won this week's event, which was known as the NEC Invitational from 1999 through 2005, seven times and has a scoring average of 67.75 at Firestone South. He has won every year at Firestone since 2005, except for when he missed the second half of the 2008 season following knee surgery.

If he can't get comfortable playing on the course where he has recorded his most career victories, then his recent swing issues and scoring problems might be more serious than first believed.

It also wouldn't bode well for his chances of winning the last major of the season, the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits in Kohler, Wis., next week. A 0-for-4 performance in this year's majors will raise the question whether Woods still has a chance to match or break Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 major championships. And what once looked like a sure thing will begin looking like a pretty tall obstacle to overcome.

Woods. who has won 14 majors, will turn 35 at the end of this year and less than a quarter of the major championship winners have been 36 or older. The only players since 1970 to win multiple majors after turning 36 are: Nicklaus (4), Gary Player (4), Ray Floyd (2), Nick Price (2), Vijay Singh (2), Mark O'Meara (2), Angel Cabrera (2) and Padraig Harrington (2).

Of course, Woods belongs in the same company as Nicklaus and Player and is obviously dedicated to physical fitness. So it certainly isn't out of the question. But he's also dominated the game for a dozen years, which is a long time in golf. Even the greatest golfers, with the exception of Nicklaus, have had a fairly short window of time when they dominated. The end of their periods of domination was marked by their inability to win another major championship.

Nicklaus won majors in three different decades, which probably explains why he's the record-holder. But his victory in the 1986 Masters at age 46 was really unexpected. Ben Hogan won all his majors from 1946 through 1953 and Arnold Palmer won all his majors from 1958 through 1964, relatively short windows. Other great champions with short spans of domination were Tom Watson (1975 through 1983), Sam Snead (1946 through 1954) and Nick Faldo (1987 through 1996).

But it should be noted that Watson almost joined Nicklaus in the three-different-decades club in last year's British Open when he lost in a playoff at age 60 in what would have been one of the best sports stories of recent memory.

So counting Woods out of the race at this stage would be ill-advised. But betting the ranch on Woods passing Nicklaus on the all-time majors list might not be such a great idea either. It will remain a major story as long as Woods keeps chasing the pea.

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The Golf Channel is going to have to put its Michelle Wie hype machine on a back burner the way 21-year-old Yani Tseng of Taiwan has emerged as the youngest new star of the LPGA Tour.

Tseng's one-shot victory Sunday over Katherine Hull of Australia wasn't a thing of beauty at Royal Birkdale in Southport, England. Tseng had to make a 6-foot par putt on the 18th hole to close with a sloppy 73 after three consecutive rounds of 68. But it gave Tseng her third major title and second of the year to go along with the Kraft Nabisco.

Tseng, who has posted two wins and four other top-10 finishes this season, is the youngest woman to have three major championships in LPGA history and is now only the U.S. Women's Open short of a career grand slam. Se Ri Pak of South Korea won two majors when she was 20 but didn't get her third until she was 24.

Tseng's victory ended a two-major run by the Americans after Cristie Kerr won the LPGA Championship and Paula Creamer grabbed the U.S. Women's Open. Kerr was the best of the Americans at Birkdale, finishing tied for fifth five shots back. Morgan Pressel was seven shots back, Christina Kim and Brittany Lincicome were nine back, Wie tied for 17th 11 shots back and Creamer, dealing with a reaggravated thumb injury, was 13 shots off the pace.

Information from Golf.com, LPGA.com and PGATOUR.com contributed to this post.