Mike Weir has the second longest string of consecutive appearances

By Robert Tychkowski, QMI Agency

PEBBLE BEACH - If not for the sympathy pass given to Vijay Singh by the United States Golf Association, Mike Weir would be the PGA's major championship Iron Man.

When he tees it up Thursday at the U.S. Open, it'll be his 45th consecutive major, a rather remarkable run of health and high-end consistency given all the superstars in the game today who haven't been able to keep up.

"It is," said the 40-year-old Canadian, whose streak began at the 1999 U.S/. Open and got a five-year boost of immunity from his 2003 Masters win. "I hadn't thought of it. It's just consistent play, the ability to bounce back during the 10 years or whatever that this is been going on.

"It hasn't been great all the time, there's roller coasters, but I've been able to keep the governor around always being around the top 50 in the world, being consistent.

"It's not easy to do when you don't have the length to overpower a golf course when you're not playing well, and make easy birdies on certain holes. You have to be pretty consistent through your bag and I've been able to do that for the most part."

It's one bragging right he has over the likes of Phil and Tiger, who've had to sit out the odd major because of health or personal reasons, but the exemptions are running out, the game is slipping and the streak is in jeopardy.

He's only good until the 2011 Masters, after that ... it could all be over.

Weir will get into this year's British Open solely on the fact he played for the President's Cup team, he'll make the PGA Championship based on world rankings, where he is comfortably within the top 100, and he has a lifetime exemption into the Masters.

But he is still without an invitation to next year's U.S. Open at Congressional, and hasn't done much this year to suggest he'll be getting one anytime soon.

He's fallen from 36th to 68th in the world rankings in the last few months and at times this year it looks like he should be playing right handed.

"This is probably the lowest (ranked) I've been. When you're not playing your greatest it's a grind to get back. When you're playing great, you just want to play, you don't have to work at it, but when you're not playing well you have to hit a lot of balls, spend a lot of time, it's more of a grind.

"I've gone through stretches where I haven't played well, golf is like that. Nobody keeps going (up). I've just been on a downswing the last couple of months. But no question I feel like I can get out of it."

He can punch his own ticket if he finishes in the top 15 here, which is not at all out of the question given that he seems to save some of this best stuff for the long rough and narrow fairways of the U.S. Open, where he hasn't finished outside the top 20 in four years.

He qualified for this one by virtue of his T10 last year, and was T18 in 2008, T20 in 2007 and T6 in 2006. He wants to be a factor again this time.

"I hope so," he said. "I haven't been playing very well, but I got a lot of good work done last week and I'm optimistic, I'm seeing progress. As long as I can get the ball going somewhat straight, the rest of my game is good. The iron play is good, my short game feels great."

Singh didn't actually qualify, but he's a Hall of Famer and three-time major champion winner whose been dogged by injuries this year, so they cut him some slack and invited him to Pebble.