El Tigre

PGA tour starts today with the Mercedes. Though he's not playing, I'm going on record with my prediction of 8 wins and 3 majors for Tiger this year. Among the majors 3 are being played at semi-random courses. The US Open is at Torrey Pines while the PGA is at Oakland Hills. Torrey Pines has never hosted a US Open, and Oakland Hills has not hosted a PGA since 1979, though it hosted the Ryder Cup and several US Open's in the 80s and 90s. Royal Birkdale hosts The Open Championship for the 4th time in 25 years. I'm marking Tiger for wins at the Masters, Royal Birkdale, and the PGA. The Torrey Pines South Course is generally the longest course played regularly on the Tour, which should work to his advantage, and the Buick Inviational is usually held there, so he certainly knows its well. But he has had a bad habit of firing balls into the thick stuff the past few years. He has won "only" 2 US Opens, compared with 3 British Opens, 4 Masters, and 4 PGAs. I'm going out on a bit of a limb here considering he doesn't play that many events any more (15-16 per year), but I think he can come close to matching 2000 -- 9 wins, 3 majors.