Tiger Woods still thinks he can help the US Ryder Cup team. It might be the only thing that could salvage yet another year without a major.

Woods matched the longest Grand Slam drought of his career when he failed to win the PGA Championship. He didn't even finish seventh or better, which he needed to have any shot of playing his way onto the Ryder Cup squad. US Ryder Cup captain Corey Pavin is to announce his four captain's picks on Sept 7.

"I think I've got a chance of maybe helping out in singles," Woods said, drawing laughter. "No, I feel like my game is a lot better than it was obviously last week. And given a little bit more time it's starting to head in the right direction now, which is good. Hopefully Corey will pick me on the team."

Woods finished at 2-under 286 after a 73 on Sunday, his worst round of the week.

The turmoil in Woods' personal life has spilled over onto the golf course, and he arrived at Whistling Straits following the worst performance of his career. He shot a whopping 18-over 298 and beat only one player in the 80-man field at Firestone - and that's a course where he's won seven times.

But Woods got in plenty of practice before the tournament began - Sean Foley, swing coach for Sean O'Hair and Hunter Mahan, was often at his side - and is optimistic he was making progress. He made a brief appearance on the leaderboard Thursday, and his 71 that day was the first time in eight rounds he'd broken par.

He followed that with a 70 in the second round, the first time since the Memorial he'd broken par in consecutive rounds.

But he backed up on Saturday and couldn't maintain his quick start on Sunday. After birdies on three of his first four holes, he "hit it awful."

"I hit my irons really good today. I drove it terrible. Couldn't quite get it," Woods said. "I was able to hit my 3-wood well. I just couldn't get a feel with the driver on how to do that. I was doing it on the range pretty good but just couldn't carry it through."