ESPN Golf

DORAL, Fla. -- Simply put, there is no explaining it. You can crunch all the numbers, run all the stats. You can theorize, hypothesize, analyze.

None of it really matters.

Tiger Woods is on the verge of "losing" a golf tournament for the first time in six months, and the scrutiny that follows the No. 1-ranked golfer in the world suggests there needs to be a reason.

Easy answer: That's golf.

More complex answer: If it were anybody else, you wouldn't even bother trying to explain it.

Woods has played 29 holes in the past two days of the bad-weather-interrupted CA Championship at Doral and is a meager 1 under par in that span, leaving him tied for eighth and five strokes behind tournament leader Geoff Ogilvy with seven holes remaining.

When the horn sounded signaling the suspension of play Sunday evening, Woods was approached for comment by a PGA Tour media official and politely said, "I'm done."

Literally or figuratively?

Woods is not one to give up, and had he hung around the Doral Golf Resort to chat, he could have made the case for victory. Birdie the remaining holes Monday, and who knows? Woods came back from seven down with seven to play at the 2000 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, where he trailed by five after 54 holes -- his largest final-round comeback on the PGA Tour.

But in all likelihood, the fantasy of winning every tournament, the dream of matching Byron Nelson's 11-tournament winning streak is over. And if you consider the improbability of such feats, then there is no shame in coming up short.

Golf is a game of failure. Even the elite players will tell you there are far more poor shots than great ones, far more defeats than victories. Ernie Els, the third-ranked player in the world, won the Honda Classic three weeks ago, his first win in 48 PGA Tour starts. Phil Mickelson, ranked second, has but one victory and a playoff loss in seven starts this season.

And we're supposed to get worked up about Woods' not tasting victory for the first time this year?

A big sports story is about to come to a conclusion, but it is certainly nothing to fret about for Woods, who won five straight PGA Tour events and seven in a row worldwide.

Ogilvy -- who leads a star-studded leaderboard that includes Jim Furyk, Vijay Singh, Retief Goosen, Adam Scott and Steve Stricker -- joked the other day that Woods' streak was a nice career. For some perspective, there are just 19 active, fully exempt players on the PGA Tour who have more than seven PGA Tour titles.

Asked before the tournament whether he expected to lose a tournament this year, Woods said, "I'm sure it'll happen eventually."

Given the way he has been playing, Woods probably did not figure it to be this week, especially given his record here and the continuation through two rounds. Not only had Woods won nine of 10 starts going back to last year but he had won three straight years at Doral and was 65 under par for 14 rounds through Friday.

Then something inexplicable happened.

Woods played the most ordinary 18 holes of golf imaginable in the third round, when he made just one birdie and shot even-par 72. While the rest of the field pummeled the Blue Monster course, Woods was making that single birdie, a first in any round since the last day of the U.S. Open at Oakmont, where he made one birdie, one bogey and a double.

But nobody is confusing Doral with Oakmont, a treacherous layout where the winning score was 5 over par. Here, Woods' 72 was his highest of the year on the PGA Tour, the highest in relation to the scoring average since he opened with a 72 at the Deutsche Bank Championship -- the last tournament he did not win.

A week ago, Woods drained a dramatic 25-foot winning birdie on the final green of the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the first time all week he had made a putt longer than 20 feet.

Here, in the span of 21 holes, Woods had five putts lip out, including four in the third round. Perhaps the golf gods were having their say.

"I know how hard I work and how many things have to go your way in order to win tournaments," Woods said before the Doral tournament started. "For instance, last week [at Bay Hill], did I play a good round on Saturday? Yeah. But if Nick [Watney] or Vijay [Singh] went out there and posted a number, they could have easily run away with the tournament.

"As it happens, it didn't turn out that way. That's fortuitous on my part, for me. A lot of things have to go your way, and right now, so far, I've had a lot of things go my way, and I've also learned how to fix things while I'm playing. I think that's been the best thing about the way I've been playing over the last few years, learning how to fix my game on the fly."

Woods was unable to fix much here over the weekend, but that happens in this game. He undoubtedly will head to the practice tee and the putting green this week. He suggested he might visit Augusta National for a practice round Friday.

And if two weeks from today he is wearing his fifth green jacket, will anyone remember -- or care -- that he failed at Doral?

Bob Harig covers golf for ESPN.com. He can be reached at BobHarig@gmail.com.