OPINION

By Doug Ferguson

updated 12:41 a.m. ET Jan. 31, 2007

SAN DIEGO - The clubs finally came out of the closet after a winter break, and Tiger Woods laid out his plans for the new year. He didn’t talk about the Grand Slam. He didn’t say anything about his PGA Tour winning streak.

And he sure didn’t mention the FedExCup.

“The only thing that matters to him is getting better,” swing coach Hank Haney said.

Haney said this a week ago Tuesday, waiting in darkness behind the first tee on the South Course with a dozen or so fans for the world’s No. 1 player to show up at Torrey Pines for his first practice round of the year.

Five days later, with the grandstands full and the fairways two-deep with fans, Woods captured the Buick Invitational for his seventh straight PGA Tour victory, the second-longest streak on the PGA Tour behind Byron Nelson.

Looks like he’s getting better.

“What we’re witnessing is something special,” said Mark O’Meara, who played two groups behind Woods on Sunday, although he finished his final round on the ninth green. “We’ve been watching history being made these past 10 years.”

The immediate history is Nelson’s streak of 11 straight victories in 1945, thought to be as untouchable as Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak or UCLA’s basketball team winning 88 straight games under John Wooden.

What seemed so improbable now looks possible, depending on where Woods plays next when he returns from the Middle East.

Woods flew across 11 times zones Sunday night to get to the Dubai Desert Classic, where he is defending champion. And while he will have a slightly shorter trip home to Florida on his Gulfstream V, he said it was tougher on his body coming back.

“We’ll see how it goes,” he said, meaning he will either play Feb. 15 at Riviera in the Nissan Open or the following week at the Accenture Match Play Championship at a new venue in Tucson, Ariz.

Woods made his PGA Tour debut at Riviera at age 16 in 1992 and missed the cut with rounds of 72-75. It is the only tournament he has played at least four times without winning, and it must gnaw at him that it is a hometown event. He has had only one serious chance of winning, closing with a 70 in 1999 and finishing two shots behind Ernie Els.

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During his last great streak in 1999-00, he won nine times in 15 starts on the PGA Tour and only once finished out of the top five during that stretch — a tie for 18th at Riviera. His last two top 10s, he got there with rounds of 65 and 64 on the last day. A year ago, he narrowly made the cut and then withdrew when he got sick.

Assume he skips Riviera.

The Match Play is always a crapshoot, although Woods won twice when it was at La Costa. His next two starts likely would be Bay Hill, where he has won four times; and Doral, where he is the two-time defending champion. That would take him to Augusta National with a chance to reach 11 in a row.

Suddenly, “untouchable” becomes a remote possibility.

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And while this streak will always be messy because he failed to win twice in Asia and once in Europe — tournaments that do not count in the PGA Tour record books — Woods is impressed by one aspect. Since missing the cut at the U.S. Open for the first time in a major, he has not finished worse than second in stroke play anywhere in the world.

“That’s pretty good, I think,” Woods said.

So is he better than he was a year ago?

Better than eight PGA Tour victories in one season, and two majors that ran his total to 12?

Woods softly nodded as he leaned back in his chair to chat with a few reporters while waiting to do a television interview. He doesn’t measure improvement by numbers alone. He uses statistics as a gauge, not a gospel.

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