Playing in the fifth pairing of the day, with an opportunity to swoop in under the radar and post a low number to make the leaders nervous, the world's No. 1-ranked player continued to have accuracy problems off the tee and with a bogey on the final hole, shot a 69 Saturday.

He will enter the final round of the PGA Championship at 1-under-par 209, 13 strokes off David Toms' lead.

At the time Woods finished his round, he was eight shots behind co-leaders Toms and Shingo Katayama. The most ground he's ever made up in the final round of a tournament was seven shots at the 2000 AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, and he staged that rally on Matt Gogel.

The stakes are much higher and the players ahead of him much more experienced and even more talented. Given the odds, Woods' streak of PGA titles looks like it will be halted at two.

''Starting out, I actually felt like I was swinging better,'' he said. ''I was actually releasing the club properly and I just needed to trust that. (After the ninth hole) I figured that if I could shoot 3-, 4-, or 5-under on the back nine, I'd be right back in this game, but unfortunately, I wasn't able to do it.''

After winning the last three majors of the 2000 season, it appears Woods will be forced to settle for one this year - the Masters. In majors since then, he has tied for 12th in the U.S. Open and for 25th in the British Open. Since shooting 68 in the final round of the Masters to finish that tournament at 16-under-par, Woods has played 11 major championship rounds at 1-over-par.

In the 11 major rounds he played before a 74 to start the U.S. Open at Southern Hills, Woods was 48-under.