ON THE FRINGE

By Doug Ferguson

updated 4:59 p.m. ET Dec. 18, 2007

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. - The maturation of Tiger Woods includes one new aspect of his game: he’s become boring.

The trained eye can still see greatness from a difficult shot that Woods can make look easy. Perhaps his most impressive round of golf was Saturday at the U.S. Open when he hit the first 17 greens in regulation at Oakmont (and had to settle for a 69).

And there is no denying the results.

Woods again dwarfed the competition this year with seven PGA Tour victories, his 13th career major, skipping the opening playoff event and still taking the drama out of the FedEx Cup, and collecting two more World Golf Championships to make him 14-of-25 against the world’s best.

But where was the spectacular shot that defines a special year?

One exercise to wrap up a season is to ask the major champions for the shot that people remember about their victory, and a shot that might get overlooked but was meaningful to them.

Two years ago, it was Woods’ chip-in for birdie on the 16th hole at the Masters, which made a U-turn and hung on the lip before falling. Last year was a 4-iron he holed out for eagle on the 14th hole at Royal Liverpool.

What will people remember about his victory this year in the PGA Championship?

“Hmmm,” Woods said, contemplating almost long enough to grow a goatee.

He settled on a shot he missed, a 15-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole of the second round at Southern Hills that spun 270 degrees out of the cup and forced him to settle for a 63, tying a major championship record.

“If you think about it, I had a chance to break a record,” he said. “Otherwise, I didn’t do anything the entire week that stood out, except to be consistent. But I think the nature of the course lent itself to that.”

As for the best shot, Woods didn’t hesitate.

“The drive on 16,” he said. “I just flushed it.”

Woods’ lead was as large as five in the final round, but it was down to one over Woody Austin — until he birdied the 15th hole. Then came the tightest driving hole at Southern Hills, and Woods hit it so pure that he twirled the club, the sure sign of a perfect strike.

“Woody was ahead of me and I didn’t know what he was doing on 17, which is a birdie hole,” Woods said. “I needed to put that ball in play and not make bogey. I’ll tell you what, to step up there have to put it in play ... and I just piped it down the middle.”

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That was as exciting as it got for Woods, one of the most exciting players in the game.

As he has gotten older — and better — Woods has so much more control of his game that he rarely has to do anything dramatic.

There is no 6-iron out of the bunker, over the water and right at the flag with the tournament on the line. Or a 3-iron over the trees to 15 feet despite his legs pressed up against the side of a sand trap. Or a 7-iron gouged out of the rough on the sixth hole of Pebble Beach that reaches the green in two. Or the hole-in-one that nearly caused a riot in Phoenix.

“He’s playing more from the correct side of the fairway now,” caddie Steve Williams said. “He doesn’t need anything dramatic.”

That supports an adage in golf that some of the most thrilling shots usually follow some of the worst. One reason Arnold Palmer and Seve Ballesteros were so exciting to watch was because of the spots from which they played, parking lots included.

That used to be Woods, too.

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