And we know it is a situation because Woods himself admits it is a situation.

The situation is, after failing to win the U.S. Open here yesterday despite being tied for the lead at one point, Woods owns a bewildering asterisk on his otherwise splendid record.

The situation is, when he has won his 12 major championships, he has always been on top of the leader board as Sunday's final round begins.

The situation is, on the other 29 occasions in which Woods has not been leading a major championship after three rounds, he is 0 for 29.

And the situation is, the situation might be getting into Woods' head that he has never won a major from behind.

"I haven't," Woods conceded yesterday with a blank expression when someone asked him if the characterization was fair. "I haven't gotten it done. I've put myself there and haven't gotten it done."

But why hasn't he? There were 45,204 spectators on the Oakmont Country Club premises who would have sworn he could get it done yesterday. I was one of them.

This was the day, we were sure, that Woods would take one more step toward catching Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 major championship titles. Instead, Woods took one more step toward catching Nicklaus' record of 19 second-place finishes in a major. Woods now has been a runner-up four times.

But why is it he can't overcome a lead? Or even maintain a lead after rallying to get there, as happened yesterday? He struggled for an answer.

"It's not easy to do," Woods finally said. "We have to play a lot of holes. It's not like they're handing out the trophy on the first green."

No. But most of us had been here at Oakmont on Saturday, just 24 hours earlier, when Woods was master and commander of all the fairways he surveyed. He missed only one green all day. At day's end, he was trailing by just two shots. The only man ahead of him was Aaron Baddeley, a collapse waiting to happen.

And just like clockwork, on the very first hole, Baddeley took three putts and made a triple bogey seven. Woods was in perfect position for a rollicking victory charge. But it never happened. Saturday, he was Superman. Yesterday, he was Clark Kent.

Who was that man in the form-fitting red mock turtleneck with the rippling muscles? It couldn't possibly have been Tiger Woods.

Why, the real Tiger Woods would never lose a major championship down the stretch to an Argentine named Angel Cabrera.

Cabrera had never previously won a tournament on American soil.

Of course, we all know that when a golfer gets hot, he can be big trouble. Cabrera was smoking. No, literally. He was smoking, lighting up eight or 10 butts as he worked his way around the course.

"There are some players that have psychologists and sports sociologists," Cabrera explained through an interpreter. "I smoke."

So maybe that's it. Woods takes way too good care of himself.

I always considered the no-come-from-behind rap to be meaningless. At the 2000 PGA Championship, Woods was indeed atop the leader board entering Sunday's final round. But he fell behind after one hole and had to claw back and eventually beat Bob May in a playoff.

Besides which, Woods knows that getting ahead is the way to win a major title. "In a major championship," Woods had said last week, "you have to hit better and more quality shots. You have to do it more frequently. And if you do mess up, you're going to pay a price. At regular Tour events, sometimes you can make up for it. In the U.S. Open, you can't make up for it."

Thus, when Woods made all those tap-in pars on Saturday, we all considered it a good thing. Tap-in pars are often a key to winning U.S. Opens. Yet time and again yesterday, Woods had the door open to pick up strokes. People ahead of him were opening that door. Woods couldn't take advantage. On the third hole, Woods scalded a chip shot over the green and into the rough, setting up his only double-bogey of the tournament. On the 11th tee, he let loose a "God-dang it!" after an approach shot went into a bunker. On the 13th green when he missed a relatively easy 5-foot putt for a birdie, he winced. Yet for all his troubles, Woods still had two final chances to do something amazing. Cabrera finished his round with Tiger on the 16th green. If he had birdied either the 17th or 18th holes, it would have meant a playoff today between himself and Cabrera. But on the 17th, a short 313-yard par, he tried to drive the green and ended up in a bunker. On the 18th, Woods had a 30-foot birdie putt but didn't come close to making it.

"I just need to analyze it and see where I went right and see what went wrong," Woods said. "I felt like I hit the ball pretty good all week. My pace on the greens, I thought, was really good."

The suspicion here is, he just never developed an affection for the playing conditions at Oakmont, with its snarky greens. At the trophy presentation, attended by Cabrera and Woods and fellow runner-up Jim Furyk, tournament chairman Paul Pohl made a way-too-long speech praising Oakmont and saying that organizers had put together "a test we thought was fair and we hope you agree." The crowd applauded at the remark. Cabrera clapped, too. So did Furyk. Woods did not clap.