How an outsider named Ben Curtis somehow won the British Open wasn't the only mystery to remain largely unanswered on the parched St. George's links this past weekend. Lost in the shock and disbelief of the ascension of the least-famous Open champion in history was the failure of perhaps the most famous.

Tiger Woods has now misfired in five consecutive major championships and the wonder now is perhaps he has become a victim of his own remarkable success.

Nobody is yet calling Woods anything but the best player in the world, and correctly so. When other players go in a slump, they don't win for a year or two years or maybe never again. When Woods goes into a slump, he only wins four times in half a year.

Expectations aside, however, it's becoming more and more obvious his brilliance has generated a renewed dedication to excellence by all the fine players he used to whip.

From the 1999 PGA Championship through the 2002 U.S. Open, Woods won seven out of 11 majors that were played.

He dominated his sport and toyed with the other great talents who compete against him.

Hardly a tournament went by that a Davis Love or a Phil Mickelson or an Ernie Els wasn't questioned about the fact that Woods seemed to have sapped them of their confidence, undermining their will to win. They did nothing to dispute it.

The only way that was going to change was if somebody or, more to the point, everybody, became more determined to do whatever it would take to get to Tiger's level.

"Some of these guys needed a swift kick in the pants," said veteran Greg Norman. "They could either face an entire career of playing for second place or they could find a way to get better."

It wasn't exactly a collective decision but Tiger seems to have delivered a mass wakeup call, not only to men who have been competing against him for years but to the next generation of players.

Perhaps it's not a coincidence the last four major winners were all first-timers, including Curtis. Such an accumulation of evidence can't be ignored.

There is a temptation to put too much emphasis on Tiger's offseason knee surgery as a source of the lull in major results. His knee was fully healed from relatively minor surgery when he came back to competition in California in February and is certainly not a factor this far along.

It was interesting Sunday to read between the lines of his comments and detect the first hint of exasperation that he hasn't been able to score a major in more than a year.

"I'm going to have to go home and reflect on this one a little bit," he said.

As the tournament turned for home after nine holes on Sunday, anybody who has watched Woods exert his will in such situations so forcefully in the past would have bet the farm on him at St. George's. The one scary personality in the mix was Denmark's Thomas Bjorn, the last man to win a tournament in which Woods was leading after 54 holes -- two years ago.

This time it was Bjorn who caved and unheralded Curtis who stepped up. It looked like an opportunity tailor-made for Woods. He was poised all the way through the back nine but never did catch the young upstart who wasn't even a star on the Hooters Tour.

Curtis is a guy who started the day just two shots off the lead, yet anyone with a spare 10-pound note could have bet him at the local (legal) bookmakers at 50-to-1 on Sunday morning. Nobody did.

That's how seriously he was regarded.

Curtis's win is a fascinating development. The accompanying exemptions -- 10 years for the British, five years each for the other three majors -- ensure he is going to be on the big stages for a long time.

In a way, it's also a crossroads for Woods. His aura of invincibility has already faded. But don't be writing him off. Jack Nicklaus, who leads the pack with 18 major wins, was about Tiger's age when he failed to capture a major from the 1967 U.S. Open until the 1970 British Open, then rebounded to win a dozen majors in his 30's.

Makes you wonder just what the next year will bring for Woods and Curtis.

Bookmakers here have already decided. You can bet Curtis to repeat at 125-to-1. Woods is the 5-to-2 favourite.