AUGUSTA, Ga. - Tiger Woods found himself in a rare position Sunday. He had already played two shots on No. 8, a par 5 measuring 535 yards, and he still couldn't see the hole.

Just as surprising was that the pin was still in the cup.

Woods, who won the Masters by shooting a record 18-under 270 for an unprecedented 12-stroke victory, could have won the tournament on the par 5s alone.

He played them in 13 under for the week. On all but three of the 16 par 5s, he was either putting or chipping from just off the green for an eagle.

This is why Jack Nicklaus said Woods was capable of winning at least 10 green jackets, why Jesper Parnevik suggested that Masters officials set up ``Tiger tees'' some 50 yards back to keep him from winning 20 of them.

But Woods didn't annihilate Augusta National on length alone.

When he turned the Masters into a runaway with a 7-under 65 on Saturday, he missed only one fairway and one green.

``In order to get to some of these pins, you've got to be on certain sides of the fairway,'' Woods had said two days before the tournament began.

He also shared another element that was even more telling about his chances of becoming the youngest Masters champion.

``It does help to have local knowledge of a golf course,'' he said. ``But when a guy gets his A-game and still has his A-game, he's probably going to win.''

When his accuracy did falter, Woods had so many other shots in his bag to carry him along.

After bogeys on two of the previous three holes Sunday, Woods hooked his approach on No. 8 into the woods, the ball settling on a bed of pine needles with a head-high mound blocking his view of the flagstick.

Colin Montgomerie, who melted under Woods' A-game in the third round, was in the same spot on Saturday and took a bogey.

But Woods played a perfect bump up the slope, the ball trickling onto the green with near perfect speed and stopping four feet from the hole.

Another par 5, another birdie.

Woods was not perfect Sunday, although even a repeat of the biggest collapse in Masters history - Ken Venturi shot an 80 in the final round in 1956 to lose by one - would not have mattered.

He made his first bogey in 37 holes when he hit his approach into the bunker at No. 5 and couldn't save par. He took another bogey at No. 7 when he hooked his ball into the Georgia pines and could only run his approach into a greenside bunker, where he again failed to get up and down for par.

Woods showed the completeness of his game at No. 8 with a birdie that seemed to settle him down and allow him to chase history at Augusta with little resistance.

Still, Woods' length cannot be dismissed, especially at Augusta.

No one, not even John Daly, has had as much ease on the par 5s as Woods had this week. He hit a 9-iron for his second shot on the 555-yard second hole. All week at No. 13, when everyone else was hitting driver, Woods hit 3-wood off the tee and at times had only an 8-iron left.

``We're all going to have to become better at certain aspects of our game because Lord knows, we can't hit it as far as he can,'' said Tommy Tolles.

Nicklaus remember those days. When he was winning three of his six green jackets by the time he was 26, he recalls reaching into his bag for 9-irons and wedges while the rest of the field had 4- and 5-irons.

Nicklaus finished his 39th Masters as Woods was just beginning his final round.

``He's out there playing another game on a golf course he's going to own for a long time,'' Nicklaus said.