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By Steve DiMeglio, USA TODAY
DORAL, Fla. — No. 1 meets No. 1 this week.

Tiger Woods, the world's top-ranked golfer, and the rest of the field at the World Golf Championships-CA Championship at Doral Resort will confront the harshest, meanest stretch of golf acreage on the PGA Tour in the par-4, 467-yard 18th hole.

The finishing hole on the aptly named Blue Monster is a chilling mixture of length, water, rough, sand and wind. Last year the hole ranked as the toughest on Tour, and that included the majors. Playing to a 4.625 stroke average, the hole surrendered just 13 birdies and 130 pars in 291 attempts, with bogeys, double bogeys and scores of 7 or higher combining for the other 148 numbers on scorecards.

"Just look at it," Camilo Villegas said when asked why the hole is so tough. "Left there's water, it's long, left of the green there's water. You've just got to suck it up and hit a good shot. You pick a good target, put an aggressive swing and hope it goes where you were aiming."

Standing on the tee, players see a lake guarding the entire left side of the hole, with trees, exacting rough and six bunkers guarding the right side. The lake juts in at the corner where the hole starts a slight dogleg left, requiring a drive of at least 295 yards to clear the water to set up the easiest approach shot. The fairway landing area is a mere 24 yards wide at the optimum place the players would like to drive the ball.

The second shot is just as terrifying, or as 2004 champion Craig Parry calls it, "bloody difficult." Most every approach shot has to carry water at some point to reach the green, which is 39 yards deep and slants away from the players. Adding even more difficulty, the left side of the green, which slants toward the water, is shaved. If players come up short, their golf balls could easily wind up in the water.

No one has ever played the hole better than Parry did in 2004, when he holed out his second shot from 176 yards using a 6-iron to win the tournament in a one-hole playoff with Scott Verplank.

"Just standing on the tee, it can get to you because you know if you pull it you're in the water and you're going to be dropping it way back and you've got no opportunity to go for the green on your third shot," Parry said. "It's no bargain at all, even in no wind. If you do hit it in the rough it's an automatic layup. It's a hard hole and always has been.

"Any time you walk off with par, you go, 'Well, that was pretty good.' And if you make a birdie, you go, 'Well, that was outstanding.' "

Last year Woods took a three-shot lead to the final hole in the final round and didn't tempt fate. Playing it as a par-5, he hit an iron off the tee, laid up with another iron, chipped on and two-putted for bogey and a two-shot win.

Woods arrived at Doral on Wednesday having won his last five Tour starts and his last seven tournaments worldwide. He cut his practice round short because of high winds but played the 18th.

"We played it all the way back," Woods said. "I wouldn't think that it would play all the way back with this wind. They probably should move it up a bit. Where I was driving it was the narrowest part of the fairway. I had 185 to the front pin and hit a little cut 3-wood in there."

Woods normally hits his 3-wood 260-280 yards. He knows he'll have to be on his game this week if he's to add to his winning streaks.

"This week is a new week," he said. "The golf course is playing a little bit more difficult this year than it was last year. They've got the greens up a little bit (speed-wise). The speed of the fairways are up. The rough is just a little bit deeper but not much."

And the 18th is as difficult as ever.