Tiger Woods is confident he can win a 16th major title in the US PGA Championship, despite heading into the event with just four competitive rounds under his belt since mid-February.

“Of course,” Woods answered with a smile when asked with the final question of his pre-tournament press conference if he could win at TPC Harding Park.

The 44-year-old returned to action at the Memorial Tournament in July following five months on the sidelines due to injury and the coronavirus pandemic but looked understandably rusty in finishing in a tie for 40th at Muirfield Village.

However, Woods has plenty of good memories of this week’s venue to draw upon when play gets under way on Thursday, having defeated John Daly in a play-off to win the WGC-American Express Championship in 2005 and also compiling a perfect 5-0 record in the 2009 Presidents Cup.

“I’ve known that from all the years and times I’ve had to qualify (for junior events) up in this area. It’s always 20 degrees cooler here than it is down there in Palo Alto and we are all going to have to deal with it.”

One thing Woods is confident will not be an issue is the lack of fans, a feature of golf’s return that Rory McIlroy admits has made it hard for him to focus.

“Rory has more experience than I do in that regard because he’s played more often in this part of the season,” Woods said. “And those four days at Muirfield was a bit different.

“It reminded me of sometimes on the weekend, you’d tee off Saturday morning and you’d just barely make the cut and you’re first off and there’s no one out there, but generally by the time you make the back nine, there’s thousands of people out there on the golf course waiting for the leaders to tee off but that never happened.

“That’s the new world we live in. We just have to get used to it. As far as the focus part of it, I haven’t had a problem with that. Those four rounds, I was pretty into it.

“It’s different than most of the times when you go from green to tee, people yelling or trying to touch you. That part is different. As far as energy while I’m competing and playing, no, that’s the same. I’m pretty intense when I play and pretty into what I’m doing.”