Golf's last two major champion-ships have left no-one in any doubt about the gulf that still exists between Tiger Woods and everyone else.

While Winged Foot and Hoylake were different tests of the same sport, one saw two superstars self-destruct and the other saw a master at work.

Just as you cannot imagine Woods doing what Phil Mickelson or Colin Montgomerie did at the United States Open in New York, you cannot imagine them or anyone else staying in such control as he did to retain his Open title at Royal Liverpool.

Mickelson and Montgomerie had double bogeys on the final hole to lose by one. Woods did not have one all week. Whatever questions were asked of him he had the answers.

Chris DiMarco, runner-up to the world No 1 in two of the last seven majors, talked of Woods' uncanny ability to produce the right shots at the right time.

"I don't do it on purpose," said Woods after becoming the first man to successfully defend the Claret Jug since Tom Watson in 1983.

"I believe the way I play golf is that you turn on the switch on the first hole and you have it on the entire time.

"You don't try harder on any shot. You have the same effort level and give it everything you have on every shot.

"For some reason in the past I've seemed to pull things off at the end and I feel that's just due to feeling comfortable being there."

And so he should. Woods has led 11 majors going into the final round and has won all 11. In the Open he has triumphed by eight, five and two strokes and if you think that indicates the gap is closing, then think again.

No-one comes anywhere near him in terms of handling pressure. Even with all the emotion stored up inside him following the loss of his beloved father in May, it affected him only when the last tap-in putt disappeared into the hole.

Woods used his driver only once all week. For all the extra distance it could give him, what mattered on the rock-hard links was position, not power.

There is a legitimate argument over whether, even with such conditions, a major championship set-up ought to be a full examination of a player's driving ability as much as anything else. But Hoylake, staging the event for the first time since 1967, was what it was and Woods reminded everyone who is boss.

Of his 18-under-par total - one outside the major record he set at St Andrews in 2000 - he was 14-under for the par-fives.

Woods has often joked about wanting to see his name at the top of one particular list almost as much as at the top of the leaderboard. At Hoylake he did it. He led the tournament in driving accuracy, hitting 48 of 56 fairways for an average of 85.71 per cent -having been ranked 179th on the US Tour this season with an average of under 60 per cent. Woods was also second in greens in regulation with 80.56 per cent. While his putting did not match that - he had three three-putts in his Saturday 71 - when it came to the crunch, he delivered.