Tom E. Curran • E-mail

Well, Eldrick, I hope you're proud of yourself.

Your domination is now so complete that if you fail to win your fifth career Masters this week at Augusta, you'll suck the air out of the 2008 golf season before Tax Day.

After 88 professional wins and 13 professional majors, you've pounded your competition down so completely that the only intrigue left for the average fan is whether you can complete golf's Grand Slam — the Masters, U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship — in one season.

Never mind that nobody's done it; this is your only remaining Everest. If you don't win the Masters, the casual sports fans interest will wander. Win it? Anticipation for June's U.S. Open at Torrey Pines spikes before you've finished hugging your caddy.

You've already won the so-called Tiger Slam (U.S. and British Opens and the PGA in 2000, and the Masters in 2001). Your breaking of Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 majors has become a matter of when, not if. You've pounded down every purported rival like a collection of stray nails and rendered ho-hummable the great careers of guys like Mickelson, Els and Singh.

And now, ability and opportunity intersect. You appear to be at the height of your powers. Better now, perhaps, than you were in your seminal season of 2000.

Masters win would add to Tiger's legend
In 2008, Woods has played in four events. He's won three and finished fifth in the other. In 12 stroke-play rounds, he's 44-under par.

This Grand Slam expectation may be the best testimony that there has never been anyone like Tiger Woods. Until Tiger, the Slam was practically a mythical goal. He hasn't just made it feasible, he's made it likely.

Video   Tiger set to tame Augusta April 8: Tiger Woods prepares to play the first of the four majors in 2008. NBC Sports

Think about that for a moment. Only four men other than Tiger have completed a career slam — Nicklaus, Gary Player, Gene Sarazen and Ben Hogan. Think of the other members of golf’s royalty — Sam Snead and Arnold Palmer in particular — that never achieved even that. But given that Woods has five wins, three runners-up, a third and a fourth in his last 12 majors, the expectation of four straight in a season is quite reasonable.

Golf fans can get their plus-fours in a bunch and pray that a Masters win from Adam Scott or Bubba Watson or Geoff Ogilvy might be good for golf and signal the start of something intriguing. If by "intriguing" they mean declining TV ratings and a post-Masters Monday that looks like something out of "I Am Legend" then they may have a point.

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The plain, simple and embraceable truth is that Tiger Woods is the only trump card the PGA has when it comes to competing with the Big Four of the NFL, NASCAR, NBA and Major League Baseball.

He's the tide that can raise the game for everyone that has a stake in it, from the mom-and-pop driving range to Nike to the TV networks.

Consider: A win by Tiger at Augusta makes the U.S. Open in June must-see TV on NBC and creates a potential advertising frenzy.

And a win at the U.S. Open would have the same trickle-down (gush-down?) effect for ESPN and ABC with the British and CBS and TNT with the PGA Championship. Which, of course, helps the PGA Tour itself when it comes time to negotiate its next round of TV deals with the networks.

It's well past the big networks though. The Golf Channel — haven for dimpleheads that concern themselves with the European Tour's Order of Merit — is running 30-second house ads for its Masters coverage. You get 20 seconds of Tiger, 5 seconds of Phil Mickelson and a blow-by shot of last year’s winner Zach Johnson (or was that actor Chris O'Donnell?).

Slide show   Week in Sports Pictures Flying on the hardwood, racing on the rink, getting physical on the gridiron, and much more. more photos

If Sports Illustrated has to make the call next week on whether to run a cover shot of, say, Brett Wetterich winning the Masters or a shot explaining why Tiger didn't win, which one do they go with?

It's not even debatable.

This is Tiger Woods in April 2008. The perceived obstacles to continued dominance — husbandry, fatherhood, age, swing adjustments, coaching changes, clicking cameras, lengthened courses, death of a parent, a receding hairline — have all been cleared. He has dealt with all of it and come out the other side better than ever.

All that now remains is for him to win golf's four major championships over the next four months. That's all.

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