Presidents Cup Is Custom-Made for Tiger Woods Tiger Woods does not seem in much need of a haven at this stage. His crisis years appear behind him for now. His swing and private life have stabilized. His image, though far from restored, is no longer in free fall. But the adrenaline rushes that go with the biggest golf victories are still missing. It is five years (and counting) since he won his last major title: on a bum knee and in a playoff at the 2008 United States Open. It has been 14 years (and counting) since he was part of a Ryder Cup celebration, and it is perhaps no coincidence that the only United States victory during that span - in 2008 at Valhalla Country Club in Louisville, Kentucky - came when Woods was, most unusually, not part of the team. But Woods still has the Presidents Cup, a less essential team competition to be sure, but one that presents a biennial opportunity to bond and roar with the same compatriots with whom he usually commiserates at Ryder Cups. There is no simple explanation for why Woods is 13-17-3 in the Ryder Cup and 20-14-1 in the Presidents Cup. The formats and match-play staples deployed within them - four-ball, foursomes and singles - are similar. Though the pressure is clearly greater in the Ryder Cup with its rich history and hard-won-and-lost edge, Woods has been one of the great pressure players in the game's history, at least until recently. Yes, the Europeans have been more formidable as a group than the Internationals, but the Internationals have had plenty of hall-of-fame talent with players like Ernie Els, Vijay Singh, Greg Norman, Retief Goosen, Ángel Cabrera and Nick Price. Price, the genial Zimbabwean, is the International captain this year and has the unenviable task of coming up with a game plan to beat Woods and the Americans at Muirfield Village Golf Club. Woods has piled up victories at many iconic American courses, but Muirfield Village, designed by his boyhood idol Jack Nicklaus, has been a particularly happy hunting ground. It is the site of the Memorial Tournament, a P.G.A. Tour event that Woods has won five times, most recently in 2012 when, despite suffering from the flu, he rallied to win with birdies on three of his last four holes. The pièce de résistance was a chip-in on the 16th. "I don't think under the circumstances I've ever seen a better shot," said Nicklaus, who was in the gallery that day and has seen plenty of circumstances and shots in his long, still-unmatched career. Woods's other victories at the Memorial came in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2009, but even when he has not won, he has usually been in the top 10. "I just feel comfortable on this golf course," Woods said in 2012. Over the course of my career, I've played Jack's designed golf courses well, and I think we kind of see the game similarly, how we hit the golf ball, the trajectory we hit it on, the way we think around the golf course. Nicklaus, now 73 and retired from competitive golf, is expected to be a presence at this Presidents Cup, an event which he never played but which he helped plant firmly on the golfing map as a four-time captain after it was created in 1994. It was created for continental balance. With the Ryder Cup already giving the Americans and Europeans a competitive forum, it seemed right that golfers from the rest of the world have their own chance to take on the Americans, too. The Ryder Cup's commercial success was also an inspiration. Nineteen years later, the Presidents Cup still trails by plenty in the revenue-spinning department, but in cultural terms it is a better fit for Woods, whose mother is from Thailand and who has much deeper connections to Asia than to Europe (his yen for links golf excluded). His career winning percentage is 44 percent in the Ryder Cup, which compares unfavorably with his usual historical measuring sticks. Nicklaus's career Ryder Cup record was 17-8-3 (66.07 percent); Arnold Palmer's was 22-8-2 (70 percent); Tom Watson's 10-4-1 (70 percent); Lee Trevino's 17-7-6 (65 percent). Those former greats played, of course, in an era when the Americans only had to play against the best of the British and the Irish instead of the best from the whole European continent. It is tougher now - much tougher. But the same American stars who have losing records in the Ryder Cup - Woods, Phil Mickelson and Jim Furyk - have winning records in the Presidents Cup. Mickelson, in the midst of a reaffirming season at age 43, will soon be the only man to have played in all 10 editions of the Presidents Cup and is 18-14-10 over all, having scored more points (23) than any golfer in the relatively short history of the event. Woods, who missed the first two editions in 1994 and 1996, has scored 20.5 points for the United States and is about to make his eighth straight appearance. Furyk, the other pillar, will miss this Cup after he failed to qualify and captain Fred Couples decided to use his captain's picks on younger men: 28-year-old Webb Simpson and 20-year-old Jordan Spieth. But Woods, now pushing 40, remains the global focal point: back at No. 1 in the world rankings and still the prime driver of interest and ratings. He is the champion the Europeans have loved to beat, and the Internationals would surely feel the same way if only he would give them the chance.