Confidence of Woods a chilling call to all-comers

The Open: World No 1 takes dominance in his stride but says winning is harder than in days of Watson and Nicklaus

What, you have to wonder, would Tiger Woods say to himself in the entirely feasible event of his winning a critically watertight and chronologically impeccable Grand Slam at the age of 26?

How easily would he re-charge his appetite and target new and previously uncharted goals?

"Well," he says after a micro second of reflection, "I would say, 'Do it again'." He smiles when he says it but there is not a breath of equivocation, and you have all over again the sense that maybe there has never been a champion sportsman less coy about the meaning and the extent of his own achievements.

The effect is more subtle than arrogance. It is about a certainty of purpose. "To be honest with you," he adds, "I never have [worried about new motivation] because I just love what I'm doing. I love getting up and can't wait to go there and practise and play and compete. I've always loved to compete, and in anything I do.

"I would love to play golf competitively as long as my body allows me. Mentally, I enjoy competing too much to ever consider walking away. Hopefully, there won't come a point in time when I can't play the game physically."

He likes the feel of this course, where he competes for the first time in this week's Open – he likes the way it offers itself without any small deceits – apart from one blind shot on the 11th – and says, 'Come and get me, and we'll see how good you are'.

The composure of Woods is stunning now. It is as though he has seen it all, felt it all, and perhaps nothing yesterday reflected more the range of his experience – on and off the course – than his handling of questions about prejudice in golf including sexism and racism.

Four years ago he was angered by off-the-cuff, cocktail-hour speculation from the former Masters title-holder Fuzzy Zoeller about what the first black winner of the green jacket would provide on the menu of the champions' dinner. Chitlings and southern greens, staples of poor blacks, was Zoeller's suggestion and Woods, born to a comfortable life in Southern California, rose to the perceived jibe. But that was four years ago. Now he says that prejudice in golf is a symptom of a wider disease, and he combats it as best he can with his own golf foundation which helps underprivileged youngsters, but do not ask him to batter open the doors of American – or Scottish – golf clubs for all the women and the blacks and the Jews and the Catholics.

He is asked if he would be surprised to learn that the youngest member at Muirfield is 27, and he says, "No. Why? You have to explain to me why I would be surprised. It depends on how the membership is set up. Is it set up through inheritance? Or is it set up that if you have the money you go ahead and pay it and are automatically a member? I grew up on a junior golf course with a lot of other kids – but there were other country clubs in Southern California where that wasn't the case. That's what they decided to believe in.

"It would be nice to see every golf course open to everyone who wanted to participate, but that's just not where society is.

"If you just pigeon-hole a single issue I think you're not doing justice in the bigger scope, and I think there are a lot of other things that go into it apart from if someone is too young or not the right race or doesn't believe in the right religion. It is unfortunate, but it is the way it is. There are clubs that have segregated, where it is sex or race or even age and those are things that have happened and will continue to occur – and they will continue to exist for a long period of time."

Meanwhile, the implication is strong, Tiger Woods will continue to play the kind of golf which is his own withering and relentless riposte to the stunned and patronising reaction of so much of white, middle-class America when a young black man first marched triumphantly along the fairways of Augusta National.

He is unrepentant about the scale of his current ascendancy – and unyielding to the growing chorus saying that while golfers such as Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson had to fight off the challenge of great players, he dominates a planet of golfing pygmies. Woods said: "Well, I think you should just go look at the scoring averages today's guys are shooting, and how much lower these guys are having to play major championships. You know it's not too often you go out there and break the scoring record in a PGA championship and you are in a play-off. The guys are getting better and the scores are getting lower.

"More guys have a chance to win. In that other era there were a select few guys that had a chance. Now that group has certainly grown. Really, I think it's tougher now."

It's a statement issued without edge. If there was a time of vulnerability to the strategic slight, clearly it has passed. He is asked if the talk of poor, dwindling competition has diminished his achievements and his deadpan expression softens into a small smile. "No," he says, "I think I've done all right. I certainly think I have done all right."

He passes a similar verdict on the security woman who stood in his way on the practice tee when he failed to produce his credential. "She was doing her job. She may not have been a huge golf fan or recognise people, but she was there and I didn't have my proper credential. I just said I won this tournament two years ago. Yeah, I guess she believed me. Maybe people forget. Two years is a long time."

It is long enough to win four more majors. Long enough to bury a lot of doubts and, in the case of Tiger Woods, most vitally, his own. Like Muirfield itself, Wood is saying, 'come and get me'. Never before in golf, you have to suspect, has there been a more intimidating call.