The Perfect Season. Seemingly unattainable, but what every athlete strives for.

Just ask the University of Hawai'i football team, which enjoyed an incredible run until it ran into the Georgia Bulldogs in the Sugar Bowl.

Or the New England Patriots until they met the spoil-sport New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII, resulting in the only 18-1 season in history. So the 12-1 Warriors shouldn't feel too bad.

Now, there's talk again about a perfect season. In golf, of all sports.

Sure, it's impossible in major league baseball or the NBA, with so many games during the year. It's almost the same impossibility in golf. Even Byron Nelson, when he won a record 11 straight in 1945, didn't win them all that year.

For a golfer to win every tournament might be viewed as a ridiculous notion. Suddenly, the way Tiger Woods is playing, it doesn't seem as far-fetched.

It used to be that the only talk was about Tiger winning all four majors in the same year in his quest for golf's Grand Slam. Now, it's also about Tiger winning every time he tees it up. It might be a reasonable a goal, considering he'll play in perhaps only 16 PGA events as he did last year, again picking the courses and conditions suitable to his game. Of course, it seems as though he can win any time, any place.

He's 3-for-3 this year with an eight-stroke victory in the Buick Invitational, an 8-and-7 blowout over Stewart Cink in the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship, and the dramatic win in the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill. And he has won five straight PGA Tour events counting last year. He's favored to make it six in a row in the WGC-CA Championship starting today at Doral, where he won the past three years.

His dominance is simply mind-boggling, otherworldly even to his fellow PGA pros.

Bart Bryant, who was hoping for a playoff before Tiger sank the dramatic winning putt at the 72nd hole last week, could only shake his head in shock and awe.

"I think the guys on tour understand. I think the real avid golf fans understand it ... But the people in general, the average golf fan, cannot appreciate exactly what Tiger is doing. They appreciate it (but) I just don't think they understand the magnitude of what he's accomplishing right now," he said.

Taking it all in, NBC's Johnny Miller said, "The guy's not even human."

"Tiger's good year is some people's career," added Stuart Appleby.

So the Tiger superlatives continue, along with his winning streak, which could carry over to his next scheduled stop — the Masters at Augusta National —when he wins Sunday. Or should I say if?

If, because all that being said, let me tell you about Kwon's Curse.

The Sports Illustrated cover jinx is nothing by comparison. I'm like Joe Bfltsk, the guy in the 'Lil Abner comic strip who walks around with a black cloud over his head. It seems like every time I start a scoring sheet on someone who's doing well, he or she promptly double-bogeys the next hole and falls off the leaderboard.

So let's see if Tiger can extend his streak this week. Let's see how really great he is.

Still, he's my golf hero.

After all, he's the guy who made the fist bump cool, helping to do away with the celebratory high-five or the low-five or hand-slapping that was once so fashionable in sports.

The closed-fist bump is cool because it's subtle and understated. Tiger made it cool, "so with it," that everyone's doing it, not just golfers.

Sometimes, though, when the situation calls for it, as it did when Tiger sank that putt in dramatic fashion to keep his streak alive, you need to do something more demonstrative to fit the emotion. Again, Tiger, came to our rescue with a new celebratory gesture: slam-dunking a golf cap to the ground when his 25-foot birdie putt fell.

You can just see other golfers picking up a new routine to go along with the fist bump. I know I can't wait to do it. Although it'll probably be a long wait for me because I rarely get a chance to sink a putt for birdie.

MORE MILES PER GALLON FOR AVERAGE GOLFER

Finally, here's a note passed along by Terry White, about the average American golfer:

"A recent study found the average American golfer walks about 900 miles a year.

Another study found American golfers drink, on average, 22 gallons of alcohol a year.

That means, on average, American golfers get about 41 miles to the gallon.

Kind of makes you proud."

Bill Kwon can be reached at bill kwonrhs@aol.com