Philip Reid reports from Minnesota

MAYHEM reigns in many guises and, when you're around Tiger Woods, it usually involves great crowds congregating in too small an area of space. They reach out with octopus arms over stretched ropes, and they yell his name and hope that the security minders will allow him enough breathing space to stop for a second.

And, if that happens, then there's always the possibility of being one of the chosen few to have his name scribbled onto a flag or a photograph or even a scrap of paper. If Tiger stops to sign, anything will do.

So it was yesterday.

Curtis Strange, the US Ryder Cup captain, took advantage of his team's gathering at Hazeltine for the season's final major to set up groups for 10 of his 12 players. There were two exceptions: Davis Love III, and Woods.

As is the norm on practice days, and despite the fog that gently hung in the morning air, Woods was off first thing - with Mark O'Meara and John Cook for company - so that his day's work was complete before many even ventured out onto the course.

There was a time that Woods would get to play such rounds in near splendid isolation. Not any more, though. The people have become wise to his early morning reconnaissance missions and, so, by the time he exited the ninth green yesterday and took the walk towards the 10th tee, he was besieged by those who wanted a part of him. Young and old, man, woman and child.

The dream of a calendar year Grand Slam may have ended at Muirfield, but Woods's presence here remains an imposing one; and the quest to win more majors, to increase his part of golf's history, remains as strong as ever.

"I've had a great year. Any time you can win one major championship in a year, it is going to be a successful year. I think winning two in one year, it has been even better. I'd like to make it three. Right now, if I can win this week, Mr Hogan and myself are the only ones that have ever won three in one year," said Woods.

His words are spoken with a calm confidence, and his eyes never move from those of his inquisitor. Just as he is so often out on the golf course, Woods is very much the one in control of his media interrogators.

And, although he failed to win at Muirfield - where he finished tied-28th - and so ended the dream of four majors in the same season, Woods got back on the winning trail upon his US Tour return last weekend when winning the Buick Open.

Prior to playing in the Buick, though, Woods paid a visit to Hazeltine last Monday week for his first look at the course.

"The course has changed since then. It's so much faster. It has dried out and the greens are certainly firmer and faster," insisted Woods. "So this week is going to be a fun challenge."

When Woods talks of fun challenges, it usually means he likes the course and is happy with his game.

They're usually ominous words and, although at 7,360 yards, Hazeltine is the longest of the four major courses this season and one of the longest in history, Woods doesn't believe he will be required to use his driver too frequently as he goes in quest of a championship he has already won twice, in 1999 and 2000.

"Most of the holes fit me better with a three-wood," he explained, "especially now that the course is playing a lot faster. I can also trap my two-iron down there and hit it 280 or 290 yards because the ball is getting 40, 50 yards of roll.

"I think the misconception is you have to be long off the tee, but that's not really so. These greens are firm enough that you have to hit the ball on the fairway and that is most important. Actually, in any major championship, you have to get the ball in play first."

Few are better at that aspect of the game than Woods.

When Woods tees off tomorrow alongside the only other two men who hold major titles at the present time, the British Open champion Ernie Els - "Tiger's such a competitive player that when he is on his game he can really blow other people out of the water quite easily" - and defending US PGA champion David Toms, he will do so in the belief that his game has what it takes to conquer the course.

"I like to get my work in before I get to a major championship and I feel like I've got all my work done now. I'm just fine-tuning and getting my feel for how the course is going to be playing this particular week," he said.

It's a formula that has seen him win seven of the last 12 majors. And, he'll tell you, there is no sense that he has anything to prove to anybody after what happened to him at the British Open.

"I'm just going to give it my best, that's all. There is no extra incentive at all. I take the same focus, the same approach, in to each and every major championship and that is to peak and get my game mentally and physically ready for this one week. I try to do it four times a year, and so far I have done it two and three-quarter times."

The missing quarter is a reference to his disastrous third round in the British Open at Muirfield when his hopes of keeping alive the Grand Slam were blown away.

While there may be thunderstorms in the air of Minnesota, there will be no repeat of the squally conditions that assaulted Scotland's east coast on that Saturday afternoon. This would leave you to believe that Woods is as much at home here as he is on any American course. His quest to join Ben Hogan as a three-time major winner in the same year remains very much alive.