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Yahoo! Sports' Brian Murphy saw a look he's never seen before on Tiger Woods's face at the US PGA Championship.

Maybe more than anything else, more than the Yang Yong-eun powerlift of the golf bag, more than the South Korean Sports Hall of Fame three-hybrid on 18, more than the chip-in eagle on 14 in front of God and Verne Lundquist the most enduring image will be a fleeting one.

The look on Tiger's face.

Yang had just made birdie on the 72nd hole of the 91st US PGA Championship, had just polished off a 70 in the final twosome with Tiger, had just become the first superhuman to slay the immortal Tiger after a 54-hole lead, and there was Tiger, left to putt out in the biggest anticlimax since Geraldo Rivera opened Al Capone's vaults.

As Yang screamed to the heavens, and as Jack Nicklaus sat on a couch in Florida surely with a wry, knowing smile, Tiger stood behind Yang, rolling his golf ball in his hand, readying it for a meaningless putt, while his mug took on a historic hue.

I'd colour it: 60 per cent pissed off, 30 per cent bemused and another 10 per cent, somewhere in there, admiring.

In all our years of watching; in all our years of seeing fist pumps from Sawgrass to Pumpkin Ridge to Augusta to Valhalla to Torrey Pines, in eras spanning from dial-up to wireless, from snail mail to Twitter, we've never seen that face. We've seen chip-ins and curling putts, we've seen primal screams and club twirls, but we've never seen that face.

Turns out it's true. You go to a ballgame, you might see something you never saw before.

We're left with maybe the most important question of them all: Will we be seeing that face more in the coming years, as the Quest for 19 spins its wheels in the roadside ditch at the 14-Major mark?

It's easy to say we won't see it anytime soon, that Tiger has placed himself in the hunt more frequently at majors the last few years than ever before, and that his constant contention three out of four times this year, he had a reasonable or extremely reasonable chance to bag a major means he will soon blow past the 18-Major Rest Stop on the Tiger Highway without even stopping for gas.

Then again, we're seeing things we've never seen before.

We're seeing six-footers on the 1st hole with a chance for a three-shot lead miss left. We're seeing par-saving putts the brick-and-mortar of Tiger's legend on the 12th and 17th holes stay above ground. Remember what the elder statesmen of the game have told us: There's no rule that says all those Tiger putts from earlier years have to keep falling, ad infinitum.

We're also seeing other things: We're seeing bogey-bogey finishes while in contention, as happened to Tiger at both Augusta National and Hazeltine this year. We're seeing missed greens from the fairway or tee box on the 71st and 72nd holes (not to mention the eighth and 12th holes, also), when missed greens would cost him a Major championship.

We're seeing Tiger tee off in the final twosome and shoot 75.

And we're seeing, for the first time in his life, at age 33, Superman's 54-hole cape with a rip in it. Never thought he'd have to send it to a tailor, but he will after blowing his first 54-hole lead at a major, ever.

A layer of his force field has now been dented, and that will, no matter what Tiger says, change things from here on out in the minds of other players.

This year wasn't just an 0-for-4 in Tiger's Major ledger. It was a blown chance at Augusta, a blown chance at Bethpage, a missed cut at Turnberry and a blown LEAD at Hazeltine. This is different from other, Major-less years in Tiger's career, years like 1998 and 2003 and 2004. Back then, he was changing his swing, a walking construction site.

Moreover, each of those missed Major opportunities has come on the heels of Tiger authoring an epic regular-season win, at Bay Hill, or at the Memorial, or at Congressional, or at Firestone.

I believe it was the great poets and deep thinkers from C+C Music Factory who once penned that such events can be filed under "Things That Make You Go Hmmm".

It also makes one wonder if chasing Jack has taken on a new weight as Tiger nears his mid-30s, if the Ghost of Jack looms that much larger as he gets closer and closer and still needs five more Majors. Chasing ghosts, it turns out, is a hard day's work.

In short, we've entered a new era in Tiger's otherworldly career at Majors: Tiger as Human Being, or Tiger as Mortal Soul.

Who'da thunk it?

Now. We've done some hyperventilating, so at this point in the column, perspective is demanded.

To wit: Jack Nicklaus finished second in Majors 19 times, which means that had Yahoo! Sports existed during Jack's career, there would have been 19 opportunities for high-handicapping, know-nothing Yahoo! golf columnists to wonder about Jack's aura, talent and inevitability.

More perspective: Upsets are the lifeblood of sport and life, and Tiger is not immune to the universe's ebb and flow. Before Yang, we've all known phenomenal upsets in history Jack Fleck, Buster Douglas and Lyle Lovett somehow bagging Julia Roberts in her prime.

More perspective: Most guys blow out their knee, have reconstructive surgery and spend the next 14 months crying into their pillows, eating Bon-Bons and lightly pedaling an exercise bike. Tiger blew out his knee in June 2008, and spent the next 14 months bagging five epic tour wins, and nearly winning three Majors.

More perspective: And really, it's not like somebody used Tiger's oh-fer in '08 to step up and steal one of his hubcaps. Phil Mickelson? Visited by family tragedy, his year was a wash. Sergio Garcia? Puh-leez. Anthony Kim, as predicted by so many of us? Puh-lez, part deux. Padraig Harrington? If you count making eights as a key part of catching Tiger, he's your man. Ernie Els? Next! Henrik Stenson, Lee Westwood, Paul Casey, Geoff Ogilvy? Nice guys. You know what Leo Durocher said about nice guys.

Instead, it was a four-pack of weirdness at the Majors. Don't get me wrong. Great stories, all, in their own right - Angel Cabrera, Lucas Glover, Stewart Cink, Yang - but nobody who looks to be declaring a lasting turf war on the world number one.

In the world of conclusion-drawing, then, we're left, in the end, with That Face. The Face We've Never Seen Before.

Tiger blew a 54-hole lead to Yang, and it left him pissed off, bemused and, somewhere, way down deep, admiring. In short, it left him changed.

After his Major season of 2009, it's time to call it the dawning of a new era, the Era of the Slightly Wounded Tiger.

He's still the baddest feline of them all, and the smart money says he still passes Jack, and then some. It's just that it'll take a while longer, and when he does it, he'll bring some scars to show and tell.

US PGA Tour Wyndham Championship LIVE coverage from 7pm on Thursday 20th to Sunday 23rd August on British Eurosport 2 (Sky 411 / Virgin Media 525); Also available on your PC via the Eurosport Player - click on the link under the picture to subscribe

Brian Murphy, Yahoo! Sports US / Eurosport