It doesn't get much better than this heading into the U.S. Open.

David Duval may be the new No. 1, but all eyes are on Woods as he tries to reclaim his reputation as the most feared golfer in a championship that has given him the most trouble.

"Tiger is coming back strong again," Ernie Els said. "He's got that look in his eye."

Woods drove the ball beautifully in Germany to win on a course framed by high rough. He won in the Memorial Tournament with a breathtaking short game. Except for one swing that led to a quadruple bogey in Dallas, he could have been 3-0 since his post-Masters break.

"I don't know if anybody can play the way he does," Jack Nicklaus said. "He has the ability to do things that nobody else can do."

The question is whether winning a U.S. Open is one of them.

For all the talk about Pinehurst No. 2, its greens shaped like the back of a spoon and the shaved collection areas that will demand imagination and touch like never before, the U.S. Open almost always comes down to patience.

And that's the one area Woods has yet to master.

Remember Oakland Hills? In his last U.S. Open as an amateur, Woods was leading in the first round until he played the last five holes at 9-over. He went to Congressional as the Masters champion in 1997, but ended any thought of a grand slam with two double bogeys in the first round. At The Olympic Club last year, he four-putted twice for double bogey.

"In U.S. Opens, you make a mistake and you're simply going to pay," said Els, a two-time Open champion.

Woods set a standard with his stunning victory in the 1997 Masters. He came within one stroke of a playoff in the British Open last year. He made an early move in the final round of the PGA Championship.

But the U.S. Open? Woods has only two rounds under par and his best finish was his tie for 18th last year, 10 strokes out of the lead.

Then again, he's just 23, and Pinehurst will be only his third U.S. Open as a professional.

As he says, he can only get better.

"Understanding how to play the game, shaping shots correctly, managing your emotions," Woods said. "These are things that take time to learn. And I've been able to soak up all the mishaps that I've had in my life and applied it each and every time, and made it better."

No matter what he has learned about himself, Woods and everyone else will have to take a crash course on Pinehurst No. 2, the masterpiece of Scottish architect Donald Ross that hasn't had a professional major since the 1936 PGA Championship.

Augusta National made news by finally growing rough. Pinehurst will be unlike past U.S. Opens because it won't have any around the greens.

"Every now and then, the USGA throws us a curve," Els said. "And this is one of them."

Davis Love III probably has as much experience as anyone. He used to play Pinehurst with his father, a renowned teaching pro who ran Golf Digest schools on the No. 2 course. Love first learned the pitch shot on the 14th hole, once played Pinehurst with Sam Snead and later won a North-South Amateur on famed No. 2.

And even he isn't sure what to expect.

"It's not going to be what any of us who have played it in the past are used to," he said. "You're not going to be able to get the ball on the green as much as you like it. Just like at Augusta, you're going to have to be very patient and hole a lot of putts for par."

Only four times over the past 20 years has a third-round leader won the Open without going to a playoff. Most times, the best way to make up ground on the leader is to make par.

Lee Janzen trailed by seven strokes early in the final round at The Olympic Club last year before making up enough ground to win. He shot a 68 while Payne Stewart had a 74.

"Lay in the weeds and let everybody else beat themselves," Nicklaus once said.

The four-time U.S. Open champion will be playing his first major in a year, and his first with a ceramic left hip.

Most of the beatings will take place around the crowned greens known as "inverted saucers." The greens are much smaller than they look because the slopes around the edges will send balls rolling endlessly into the collection areas.

That's where the Open may be won -- or lost.

"I tried almost every club in my bag around the greens," Woods said after a practice round at Pinehurst last week.

If Masters champion Jose Maria Olazabal can keep the ball in play, his brilliant short game might give him a chance to become the first player since Nicklaus in 1972 to win the Masters and U.S. Open in the same year, and the first European to win the U.S. Open since Tony Jacklin in 1970.

Or perhaps this will be the year that Colin Montgomerie, haunted by three close calls in the U.S. Open, finally wins his first major championship.

Montgomerie's strength is his accuracy off the tee, which is always important in an Open. He is not lacking in confidence, either, particularly after winning the Benson & Hedges and the Volvo PGA Championship, Europe's biggest event.

But that doesn't compare with Woods, who is as hot now as David Duval was going into The Masters, when he replaced Woods as the world's No. 1 player.

"It's a little unsettling to see Tiger playing so well," Els said.

Golf has been craving a showdown between its young stars on the grand stage of a major championship.

Duval gave himself a chance at Augusta until his Sunday charge was derailed by a double bogey on the 11th hole. He has been eerily quiet since then, but returned after a three-week break to finish tied for third in the Memorial.

"It's pretty well known that when you go to the U.S. Open you hit in on the fairway and you need to hit on the green," Duval said. "So I'm going to figure out a way to do it."

Woods has returned to the fundamentals with his putting and it's starting to pay off. His confidence is building with every round, every victory.

If there's a back-nine duel at Pinehurst, Nicklaus will know why.

"It's kind of unusual, but probably the two best players in the game today, Tiger and David, both love to practice their short game," Nicklaus said. "And it's paid off for both of them."

Pinehurst will require no less of a U.S. Open champion.

AP