I'm still in Nicklaus shadow - Woods

The 33-year-old world number one will on Thursday begin his bid for a 15th major success when the 109th US Open gets under way at Bethpage Black. Victory at the New York course, though, would still leave Woods three championship titles short of the legendary Nicklaus, who won his titles between 1962 and 1986.

When asked who he thought was the greatest, Woods replied simply: "Jack. He's got 18. I'm at 14."

Woods, who won the first of his majors at the 1997 Masters, has achieved one milestone after another in the game, including becoming the youngest player at 24 to achieve the career Grand Slam of majors when he won the 2000 Open at St Andrews.

Having also become the first player to hold all four major titles at the same time when he won the 2001 Masters, and having spent more than 500 weeks at the top of the Official World Golf Ranking, including 200 consecutive weeks at number one since June 2005, Woods is already considered by some to be the greatest golfer of all time.

Woods will be chasing his fourth US Open title at Bethpage this week, where he won the second of his titles in 2002, beating Phil Mickelson by three strokes and he appears to have finally returned to his vintage best following eight months out recuperating from reconstructive knee surgery.

The American won his third tournament of the year at Bay Hill, but it was not until the Memorial tournament in Ohio two weeks ago, when he found all 14 fairways at Muirfield Village in his final round of 65 to come from behind to win by a stroke, that he felt he had really hit form in all facets of his game.

"Unfortunately the Sundays I didn't play well and didn't win, that was kind of how I was playing the rest of the week," Woods said of his tournament play before the Memorial. "A lot of those times I did it was smoke and mirrors and making some putts or hitting a key shot at the right time, get a good bounce.

"But I hadn't actually put it together that week or for the whole week. Sunday (at the Memorial) was just a culmination of what I've been doing. I missed, one of the days, I forgot what it was, hit 13 out of 14 fairways and missed it on 18.

"So that was just a culmination, Sunday was a culmination of what I had been doing. It wasn't like I stood out. It was just what I've been doing. The other tournaments, unfortunately that's what I've been doing leading into it but somehow put myself into a position where I could win. Unfortunately, I performed on Sunday like I was performing the first three days."