Woods is a near lock to win the Masters next month

	If Tiger has any hopes of capturing the Grand Slam, he'll have to tackle Royal Liverpool -- the site of this year's British Open. Darren Carroll/SI
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It's the annual first harbinger of spring. I'm talking, of course, about the specter of the Masters Tournament. Don't look now, but it's only a month away, a fact that suddenly hit home last week when Sports Illustrated's Alan Shipnuck offered his Masters picks here on SI.com.

Funny, even though the Masters is starting to loom large, I've still got some unanswered questions about this year in golf. Let the pondering begin ...

• I apologize if I'm jumping the gun here (or trying to start a bandwagon), but is there any good reason why Tiger Woods won't win the calendar-year Grand Slam this year? It's terribly unfair to put that burden on anyone, even Tiger. Augusta National has been lengthened (again) and made even more ferocious (again). This plays right into Tiger's hands and reduces the number of players who can win this tournament to a handful or two. Not only does he have the power to easily handle the length, he's got the high ball flight and the ability to land shots softly on those hellacious putting surfaces. The way he's played this year, right now he's a mortal lock to win his fifth Masters ... although in golf, there's no such thing as a mortal lock.

• The U.S. Open is at Winged Foot, another long, tough test perfectly suited to his power, his short game and his superior course management. (Oh, and he tied for 19th there in the '97 PGA). The last major of the year is the PGA Championship, which will be played at Medinah's No. 3 course. Tiger's already scored one PGA there in 1999, when he won a showdown with then-upstart Sergio Garcia.

The only wild card on this year's major combo platter is the British Open, the only major Tiger hasn't quite figured out. Both his British Open titles were at St. Andrews, a course he manhandled. He's had four other top-10 finishes, but also three results outside of the top 20 as a pro. The Open returns to Royal Liverpool for the first time since Roberto de Vicenzo won there in 1967, so the players and caddies know very little about it. Neither does the media. Royal Liverpool is the equivalent of a surprise dessert. That said, I'll take Tiger on any course, anywhere, sight unseen. Forty-eight tour wins, including his latest at Doral, say he's the man to beat.

• Who's really the second-best player in the world these days? Vijay Singh has been the obvious answer for the last two years, but his putting stroke isn't quite as reliable as it was when he briefly snatched the No. 1 ranking from Tiger. One thing about the PGA Tour, if you don't have a great putting week, you simply aren't going to win. Vijay's got a pair of top-tens, but winning without a hot putter is problematic. Can Vijay bounce back? I'd never write him off. For one thing, you know it's not because he's slacking. Also, he's got my phone number.

The other obvious No. 2 candidates haven't distinguished themselves of late. Ernie Els bounced back from knee surgery that wiped out the last half of last season -- he did win the Dunhill Championship in December -- but hasn't made an impact yet in the U.S. Phil Mickelson took a long break and it's still showing in his short game. He looked like the old Phil when he dueled with Tiger the first two days at Doral last week, then he went away faster than a UPS package on a disastrous weekend.