That day at Milwaukee, before he made his professional debut at the 1996 Greater Milwaukee Open, Tiger Woods looked straight into the lights cast from a phalanx of television cameras and said "Hello, world." He was 20.

He's not 20 any more. In fact, he's not even twenty-something any more. As the PGA Tour season starts hitting full-speed again, it will be with a different, older player at the helm - Tiger at 30.

As Tiger's first decade as a pro drew to a close, the numbers he had compiled were simply amazing. He had made $55.8 million on the PGA Tour and $68.1 million worldwide. He had won 46 times on the PGA Tour and 17 more worldwide. He had been voted seven times as Player of the Year by the very players he was beating week after week.

And, perhaps most important, he had won 10 major championships, putting him more than halfway toward the Holy Grail of golf's records - the 18 major titles won by Jack Nicklaus.

Tiger at 30? On one hand, it doesn't seem possible, considering that we first saw him as a two-year-old kid putting balls on Mike Douglas, and then as a fresh-faced 21-year-old who went out and dominated Augusta.

On the other hand, doesn't it seem like he's been at this for a while? Woods is playing his 10th full year on the PGA Tour. It's also undeniable that he's nowhere near finished yet. If Woods was the player of the decade of his 20s, chances are he'll also be the player of his 30s, too.

For his part, Woods says he's content standing on the right side of 30, counting his blessings and fully prepared to keep counting the victories. "If you look at most of the guys' careers, it looks like their peak years are in their 30s," Woods says. "Hopefully that will be the case for me. Hopefully my 30s will be better than my 20s. That would be pretty neat to happen." Neat? Try off-the-charts amazing.

"Obviously, there is a lot deeper competition, a lot more work I need to do, work to accomplish those goals, but winning major championships is what I want to do for the rest of my career."

You would have to say he's done all right by his goals so far. Last year, Woods won his fourth Masters and his second British Open, ending a two-and-a-half-year drought in the majors that dated back to the 2002 U.S. Open at Bethpage Black.

Nicklaus' records are in his sights, sort of like they were when Woods was a youngster in Cypress in Orange County in Southern California and had taped to his bedroom wall a piece of paper with Nicklaus' majors written on it.

Nicklaus is the standard by which Woods is measured and always has been, but a head-to-head comparison shows that Woods is on the right track. In fact, he's even ahead of the pace.

Nicklaus won 30 PGA Tour events before he was 30. Woods has won 46. Nicklaus won seven of his 18 major championship titles before 30. Woods has 10.

Nicklaus won three of his record six Masters titles before 30. Woods has won four times at Augusta National. Success after 30 was something Nicklaus had no problem achieving. He won 43 of his 73 PGA Tour events after he was 30, which leaves a clear path for Woods to follow.

If Woods wins 43 more times, he'll be sitting on 89 wins, shattering Sam Snead's record of 82. It's also worth noting that such golf icons as Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer and Snead all won more PGA Tour events and more majors after turning 30 than before.

"If I play the way I know I can play, I think I can get there (to Nicklaus' record). But as I say, I have a lot of work ahead of me and a lot of things I need to do to make myself peak at the right times and get all the things coming together like I did (in 2005). I put all the pieces together at the right time four straight times."

As a reminder, Woods had a shot at all four majors last year. Besides winning at the Masters and the British Open, Woods was second to Michael Campbell at the U.S. Open at Pinehurst and tied for fourth at the PGA Championship at Baltusrol, where Phil Mickelson won.

It's that sort of consistency that Woods is banking on to carry him in his 30s. Campbell, who stood up to Woods' challenge at Pinehurst and wound up with his first major title, says he's seen nothing to convince him that Woods remains anything but in full ascent.

"He can get better," Campbell says. "His swing is a lot better than it was. That encourages better golf shots and less erratic ones. It's going to be a very interesting year for Tiger."

For Tiger's mother, Kultida, the word isn't 'interesting,' it's 'majors.' No player has done more than Woods in his 20s, and Tiger's mom says he has some momentum built up that's going to carry him toward his ultimate goal.

"Are you kidding me? The golf is just beginning," she said. "You know Tiger's goal: Jack Nicklaus. Tiger's got 10 more years, 12 more years. He can catch him."

Even Nicklaus has to admit Tiger's on his trail and getting closer. "He's certainly well ahead of the game."

In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle late last year, Nicklaus said he expects Tiger to get better with age.

"Maturity plays a great part in golf. It really takes a long time to truly know how to play, to learn one's own game and how to be patient with it. Some players learn earlier, but even then they tend to peak later. I can't imagine Tiger being any different. He's a very smart young man. He understands the value of patience and experience."

Nicklaus should know. The best three-year stretch of his career was from 1971 through 1973, a period that started when Nicklaus was 31. He won 19 times in those three years, and four of those wins were majors.

Nicklaus won six more majors after he was 35, and one of them was his 18th and last - the 1986 Masters when he was 46. Woods says he could see himself playing at the same age - maybe. But he also says he'll know when he doesn't want to play anymore.

"If I'm physically able, yes. I will quit playing when I can't play anymore, when my best isn't good enough anymore. When I get up there and tee it up and feel in my own heart I'm playing my best and I can't win. That's when I rack the cue and walk."

Now that he's safely into a new decade, Woods can look back and ignore or even laugh at all the criticism he received about his much-publicized swing changes. He says those changes, in which he altered the arc of his swing to make it tighter and thus avoid injury, paid off with a six-victory season in 2005, his best money-making year since he turned pro and his best year since he won nine tournaments and three majors in 2000.

That year, Woods established or tied 27 PGA Tour records. His non-adjusted scoring average of 68.17 was the best in history. He ended the year with 47 consecutive rounds of par or better. He won the U.S. Open by a record 15 shots, breaking the mark for the biggest margin that Old Tom Morris set in the 1862 British Open when he won by 13. Woods won the British Open at St. Andrews by eight shots, completing a career Grand Slam. At 24, he was the youngest to do so.

Clearly, the first round of swing changes made under the watchful eye of Butch Harmon worked their magic. But more changes were in store.

Woods says the latest round swing changes that he worked on for two years, mostly under the tutelage of Hank Haney, are paying dividends, with Woods' two majors and $10.6 million in earnings in 2005 offering convincing proof. He says his swing has boosted his comfort level "tenfold" compared with a year ago. He also said the changes are becoming second nature to him.

"That's the whole reason I made the changes, to relieve stress on body parts that were taking a pounding. The end result is I've relieved some of the stress there and I feel better every day. "I'm starting to make (the swing) more fluid-looking and more natural-looking. So, hence, it's going to look different. Before, it looked kind of robotic in a sense. Now, it's starting to come together."

Two full Tiger swing changes ago, Colin Montgomerie played with Woods at the 1997 Masters, which was Tiger's first major title. Going back to the first he saw him, Montgomerie admitted the obvious - that Woods achieved what Montie thought he would.

"You mean win 10 majors before 30? Yes, that's achievement, definitely. There is no way he was going to do anything else.

"This wasn't a flash in the pan or just a fluke or just a day that it happened. Sometimes people have had four days where it's happened. It's worked and they've won a major. This was number one of many. And we haven't stopped yet, have we? There's 10 more already and there's many to come, I'm sure."

Campbell echoes Montgomerie and says he believes that Woods will pass Nicklaus.

"Absolutely. He's got 15 years left in him; that's 60 more opportunities to win majors. You do the math."

The math gets kind of fuzzy when it involves earnings comparisons between Woods and Nicklaus. For instance, in 1970, the year Nicklaus turned 30, the total prize money on the PGA Tour was $6.7 million. This year, it's going to be about $257 million. But you can always compare how they performed against their peers. Woods has been the leading money winner six times in his first nine full years. Nicklaus led the money list three times his first nine years.

It's a long way from that day in Milwaukee. Way back at the beginning, Woods had a different set of standards to shoot for. In the back of his mind, he may have been thinking about how to eclipse Nicklaus' record in majors, but at the very front of his brain there was a much more basic thought process going on when he stood up in front of the media in Milwaukee in '96.

"I wanted to get my card. When I first came out, I had no status or exemptions. I was praying not to go to Qualifying School, just praying. That was certainly one of the biggest goals. I thought, at the time, the '97 Masters, I thought it was big for me in a number of different ways. It was my first major as a professional, I got a 10-year exemption there, too. That certainly allowed me to feel more at east that I was able to be on tour for a full decade and not to have that pressure that I did in '96 when I first came out.

"I just wanted to win golf tournaments and hopefully win major championships. I didn't foresee it happening so quickly, but it certainly relieved a lot of tension on me to have won so quickly."

He tied for 60th in his pro debut at Milwaukee and earned $2,544. At the Bell Canadian Open, he was 11th, and in his third event, the Quad City Classic, he tied for fifth. Next, at the B.C. Open, Woods tied for third and earned $58,000, his biggest paycheck so far.

But in his next tournament, he won, beating Davis Love III in a playoff at the Las Vegas Invitational, earning $297,000. He finished the year with five top 5s and earned his second win, at the Disney World/Oldsmobile Classic.

Tiger was off and running at 20. Today, with his revamped swing solidly in place, Woods seems ready to take off in his 30s at the same high level of productivity that his first decade on Tour produced. He says that when he started as a pro, in 1996, he didn't envision that his swing would have to go through so many changes.

"No, you never foresee that. When I was an amateur, I knew that I needed to make changes, but I didn't think I needed to make significant changes when I started working with Butch (Harmon). And then to tear it all down again after the '97 Masters, retool it in July, took almost two years. And then you never foresee to have to do it again, but I did it again. Hopefully I won't have to do it again.

"My swing was good enough to compete on tour when I came out, but I didn't think it was good enough to compete consistently on tour. I had a lot of holes in my game. I wasn't a very good driver of the golf ball, my distance was terrible with the short irons. I would fly it over a bunch of greens. And my putting was way too aggressive. I had holes in my game that I needed to rectify in order to be consistent week in and week out.

"All the great champions that have ever played, that's what they did. I didn't think my game was good enough, so I needed to make changes."

Of course, the game changed along with Woods. Now, 300-yard drives are not that unusual, thanks to improvements in the technology of golf balls and clubs, plus the players' commitment to conditioning, which Woods had as much to do with as anyone.

Last year, Woods ended his 20s with a season of majors he regards as better than 2002, when he won the Masters and the U.S. Open. His seventh Player of the Year award was evidence of that. He's enjoying a relaxed home life with his wife, Elin, and it's put him at ease when he's working.

And lest anyone think that family life will mellow Woods and cause him to lose his edge or become distracted, Tiger says to forget it. He and Elin do plan to start a family and see no reason to wait, but instead of being a distraction, the addition of a family is something that will help him play better, Woods says. Nicklaus has been quoted as saying the same thing - that his own family life settled him down and helped him to produce the best years of his career.

As Woods says goodbye to his 20s, he's welcoming his 30s with open arms, with 300-yard drives, a retooled swing, soaring iron shots, brimming with confidence and full of the promise that the putts he hits will somehow find the bottom of the hole.

Tiger in his 30s? If things work out, that could be how many major titles he winds up with. The way he played during his 20s, it's probably wise not to rule it out.