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By Brett Avery
PGATOUR.COM Contributor

Three straight majors obviously weren't enough.

Tiger Woods shares a laugh with Hal Sutton during the 2000 event in Akron. (WireImage)

While everyone was trying to place some sort of Monday morning quarterback's yardstick against the 2000 season Tiger Woods had accumulated -- seven titles overall, completion of the career Grand Slam, an outside chance at the first $10 million year in official earnings, at least a dozen PGA TOUR records already cracked -- the guy was barely winded.

Seven days after needing three extra holes to subdue Bob May in the PGA

Championship at Valhalla GC in Kentucky, a 24-year-old Woods dismantled Firestone CC's South Course (and a select field of three dozen of his supposed peers) to turn another World Golf Championships event into his playground.

Woods shot 64-61-67-67 to win $1 million with a laughable 11-shot victory over Justin Leonard and Phillip Price, who truly won the tournament for second place.

It's a slam-dunk that such an overwhelming performance has never been seen in the annals of the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational (back then known as theWGC-NEC Invitational). Better yet, Woods' victory sent historians scrambling to put it in perspective across decades of TOUR events.

Commissioner Tim Finchem had offered a phrase for Woods' feats: "the list of incredulousness." Tough to find anything that challenges that assessment, especially considering what would occur at Firestone, hardly a pushover of a track.

Woods played the first nine holes of the week in 30 and was flirting with bettering 60 until he bogeyed two of the last three on the back nine for his 64. Even so, he led by two shots and retired to the practice range for a tune-up with then-teacher Butch Harmon.

As if he hadn't already damaged enough psyches on TOUR with three consecutive major victories, Woods came out Friday and was eight under par through 12 holes, leaving an 11-under 59 (or better!) dangling in the distance.

Woods clipped only one stroke off par over the last six, which considering the quality of his play that year was akin to throwing off bouquets of bogeys.

That's 36 holes in 15-under 125, a TOUR scoring record.

Not content with a seven-shot overnight lead on Phil Mickelson, eight on Leonard and nine on Jim Furyk, Woods began Saturday's round birdie-eagle-birdie. At that point he was 19 under par and could par the last 32 holes and still break Jose Maria Olazabal's 262 from the 1990 playing of the old World Series of Golf at Firestone.

Instead, he bogeyed the fourth hole and then reeled off 14 pars for good measure to shoot 67. Even while he was treading water the closest anyone could come by sundown Saturday was nine shots: Mickelson, Price and Hal Sutton.

"I think that people watching on television or people asking these questions are looking at it in relation to the leader, and that's not how I'm looking at it, "Mickelson said. "I look at how I am compared with the course and what I expect out of myself score-wise."

The final round was anti-climactic, although a three-hour rain delay allowed for plenty of navel-gazing about how this season stacked against Ben Hogan in 1953 (three majors but only six starts). By the time play resumed it was a rush to darkness to squeeze in a Sunday finish, assured in the gloaming when Woods staked an 8-iron from 162 yards to two feet at the home hole.

Oh, and in case you needed any more signs from the heavens, that Sunday was the fourth anniversary of his turning pro. Like the rest of the players needed that reminder.

Woods handled a string of questions in his post-round group interview.

Toward the end someone asked about dominating the previous season and then roaring through 2000. The query ended with a simple request: How important is it to you to be not only a winning player, but a dominant player?

"I'm going to continue to try and get better; and what you've seen, I'm a better player than I was last year, and hopefully it will be the same next year," he said. "And sometimes, like I said back in [1998], winning isn't always a barometer of getting better. When you get to a point where you really start winning, then obviously you've done all the hard work. You just need to fine-tune it from there -- which I felt like I've done."

It seemed incredible at the time, but seven years later it's hardly unusual: fine-tuning his game while shooting 259 at Firestone.