Here we go again, then.

For the media masses, the relationship between us, Tiger Woods and the major championships these days almost resembles a series of first dates. It's all excitement and spine-tingling anticipation in the build-up but, after some early promise and a couple of flirtatious exchanges, the whole episode ends in crushing disappointment. Yet we still come back for more.

Like some soppy singleton eagerly leafing through the lonely hearts pages, we approach each major with the hope that this could be the one. It's all Woods' fault of course. He flutters his eyelashes with a couple of alluring victories and makes us all weak at the knees only to come over all shy and bashful on the big date before ruining it all by doing the golfing equivalent of sneezing in the soup.

This week at Oak Hill, Tiger is teasing everybody again and the bandwagon has rumbled into upstate New York for the final major of the year, the US PGA Championship.

Woods was back to his barnstorming best at his happy hunting ground of Firestone at the weekend when he blitzed the field with a 61 en route to a seven-shot canter in the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational. And so begins the endless probing, pondering and punditry. At least Woods has now achieved that magical number of 18. It may not be the record haul of majors that Jack Nicklaus racked up but 18 WGC Championship titles is still another remarkable number in a career that continues to be defined by them.

Not that many give two hoots about these wins, of course. The furore surrounding Woods and the fact that he has been stalled on a total of 14 majors for the last five years is all that matters in the eyes of most. There's just no pleasing some folk in this fiercely fickle pursuit. Woods now has five victories to his name this season and his brace of WGC wins, as well as his Players' Championship success, came against fields that are considered to be the strongest the global game can muster.

Sunday's stroll ended with him picking up the 79th PGA Tour win of his glittering career at the age of 37. The great Sam Snead, who still holds the record of 82, was 47 when he captured win No.79. There is still much to be accomplished for Woods and the assault on Nicklaus' major tally resumes again at Oak Hill. Until he ends a drought that stretches back to the US Open in 2008, however, Woods will always be questioned. He can do what he likes on the PGA Tour - and he's won just about everything there is to win over the past couple of years - but there are plenty who are eager to cheapen such conquests.

If it was any other player - and no-one has won with such frequency this year - these recent feats would be praised from the rooftops but this is the Tiger we are talking about. Everybody got used to him producing something out of the extraordinary and until that 15th major arrives it seems that everything else will remain, well, ordinary.

It's a tough old life but then Woods himself did lay down the law. The mission statement said it all. "You can win all the tournaments you want," he once stated. "But the majors are what you're remembered for. It's how you're measured as a champion in our sport. The majors are where it's at."

Whether that long-awaited next major arrives on Sunday remains to be seen but in recent championships the script has tended to follow a familiar pattern; one where Woods manoeuvres himself into a menacing position, only for the potential to go unfulfilled. In the last seven majors, stretching back to 2012, the world No.1 is a combined eight-under-par for the opening two rounds but has covered the closing 36-holes in an aggregate of 25 over.

The killer instinct, the daring recovery shots and the devastating blows with the putter at the vital times that were his trademark have deserted him when it matters. In the hunt heading into the final round of the Open Championship at Muirfield three weeks ago, he slithered quietly out of the picture with a whimper while Phil Mickelson, with a rampaging back-nine, conjured the kind of magical moments that appear beyond Woods in the major arena.

Oak Hill will provide yet another opportunity for Woods to show that he is truly back. He will have to be at his best. In these times of great strength in depth, the first three major winners of the season - Adam Scott at the Masters, Justin Rose at the US Open and Mickelson in the Open - have all been in the top 10 of the world rankings.

In 2003, when Oak Hill last hosted the US PGA Championship, Shaun Micheel, ranked 169th on the global pecking order, struck another blow for the underdogs and joined an unheralded quartet of major champions that year that also comprised Mike Weir, Jim Furyk and Ben Curtis.

A decade on, some of the world's best have proved to be the best so far and the leading lights have shone brightest on the biggest stages. Ahead of his latest date with destiny, Woods' task doesn't get any easier.