A basketball fan and longtime friend of Michael Jordan, Woods earlier in the week recalled some hours he spent with Jordan in the gym feeding him the ball.

“He would just shoot all night,” Woods said. “We thought that, ‘Yeah, he just showed up to the game and off he went and scored 45 and went home.’ You don’t realize what he did to prepare for that.”

With his victory at the Memorial, Woods now has won 20 of his last 40 tournaments worldwide over the last three years. All it takes is a tournament or two without winning, especially when he has a chance on the back nine as he did his previous three events, and his game falls under more scrutiny than any other player.

Nicklaus went through that, too.

“One year I won eight or nine tournaments and they said, ’What’s wrong with Nicklaus? He didn’t win a major?’ I finish second in three of them, but I didn’t win. So I’m in a slump,” Nicklaus said.

His numbers were slightly off. He never won more than seven times on the PGA Tour in a single year, although he did finish runner-up three times in the majors in 1964. But you get the point.

“He goes through the same thing,” Nicklaus said. “It’s the same thing every time. You just really can’t pay much attention to it. You’ve just got to go about and do what you do. That’s what he’s been doing.”

Ask any athlete about the public’s expectations, and most will say their expectations are even higher.

Woods might be an exception.

“My expectations ... I had to lower them a little bit because I knew I couldn’t practice when I wanted to and I couldn’t do all the things I used to be able to do,” he said. “It was just a matter of time before my practice sessions started getting long enough, and I started building my confidence through that. And here we are.”

That should make him a big favorite at Bethpage Black. If you don’t think so, just ask Jack.

At the trophy presentation, Nicklaus said he suspected that Woods’ 15 career major would come in a couple of weeks.

“If he drives the ball this way, and plays this way, I’m sure it will,” Nicklaus said. “And if not, it will surprise me greatly.”

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