Remember everyone saying that Woods couldn’t win on courses that took the driver out of his hand?

Now they’re saying he can only win on courses where he can leave the driver in his bag.

“Any time he doesn’t have to hit driver, he’ll hit it right down the middle,” Chris DiMarco said.

That was either a backhanded compliment or a bad perception, because Woods is capable of missing fairways with anything, as he showed in the second round at Medinah by hitting 3-wood that was headed for trouble until a fan swatted it back into play.

Haney attributes some of perception to equipment, especially as it relates to driving accuracy.

Woods used a 43½-inch driver with a small head and a steel shaft in 2000, and he could hit it about 290 yards in the air. Now his driver is nearly twice as large, with a 45-inch graphite shaft.

“You could make the argument that his driver is now just a specialty club,” Haney said. “It’s a club he uses when he can go ahead and bomb it, and there’s no reason not to. Let’s compare the club he hits 290 yards, which is how far he was hitting his driver in 2000. That’s his 3-wood now.”

For all the talk about distance and accuracy, Haney believes the key lies elsewhere.

It’s the short game, stupid.

And he isn’t the only one in Woods’ camp who feels that way.

“I told Tiger at the start of the week, if you don’t make a double bogey and you don’t three-putt, you’ll win this tournament,” caddie Steve Williams said Sunday evening.

He had a three-putt bogey on No. 16 in the third round, and no double bogeys.

Woods had five three-putts at Pinehurst No. 2 when he finished two shots behind Michael Campbell in the U.S. Open last year, and Haney said he had five more three-putts at Baltusrol when he wound up two shots behind Phil Mickelson in the PGA Championship.

Haney is a nut with statistics, but two obscure stats he uses to state his case are eye-openers.

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Woods is tied for first in proximity to the hole on the PGA Tour. But he ranks No. 171 in avoiding three-putts, averaging slightly less than three per tournament. Woods is No. 1 in greens hit in regulation, but 159th in average putts per round.

“If you look at his statistics, it’s incredible what he’s done this year,” Haney said.

Someone in New Zealand asked Williams earlier this year if he ever thought Woods could repeat a season like 2000, and the answer was somewhere between doubtful and questionable.

“But with what Hank has taught Tiger, and the way Tiger has taken it in, I don’t think we’ve seen the best of this guy,” Williams said. “The best is yet to come, and we’re starting to see signs of it. I think Tiger can improve, and you’ll see some great results.”

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