Halfway through the season, Tiger Woods has made it clear that he is hitting his stride in pursuit of a major record.

Just not the majors record.

Not yet, anyway.

Woods has been stuck on 14 majors for the past four years, and he hasn’t even cracked the top 20 in the past three he played.

Before he can think about Jack Nicklaus and his benchmark of 18 professional majors, the percentages suggest that Woods has a better shot at first getting to a record that is no less impressive, even if it doesn’t get nearly enough attention — Sam Snead and his 82 wins on the PGA Tour.

Woods won by five shots at Bay Hill and rallied from four shots behind to win the Memorial, pushing his career total to 73 wins, tied with Nicklaus for second place. He has nine more chances this year to move closer to Snead, compared with two more majors to end his drought and make some headway on Nicklaus.

All anyone talks about — all Woods really has thought about since the 1997 Masters — is Nicklaus and the majors.

As for Snead’s record?

“I was aware of it, but at the time, everyone focused on Jack’s record,” Woods said Tuesday. “But as I delved more into the game and was probably in high school, I started understanding Sam’s contributions to the game of golf and his consistency. The fact that he won at age 52, when he won Greensboro, and to do it for that long is amazing. Truly amazing.”

Nicklaus won 14 times in the first 58 majors he played as a pro, same as Woods. Snead compiled 82 wins over 30 years. Woods has 73 wins in 16 years.

An argument can be made that Woods’ 73 wins are more impressive than his 14 majors in relation to the record book.

“I don’t think Snead gets his due on that record,” twotime U.S. Open champion Curtis Strange said. “It speaks to longevity and talent. I think Sam could be the best player of all time. There’s a hell of an argument for that. Certainly, Jack is the greatest champion of all time. But Sam’s record doesn’t get his due. In the Nicklaus era and forward, we’ve give the majors so much PR. When we talk about majors, we discount the other wins. We talk about how much harder the majors are to win.

“Sometimes, that’s not necessarily true.”

The numbers favor Woods getting to Snead before he gets to Nicklaus.

He has won 27 percent of his PGA Tour events. Throw out the majors, and he has won 29 percent of the time. And then consider that on average, his chances at winning tournaments compared with winning majors are about 18 to 4.

Nicklaus and Woods were paired together in the 2000 PGA Championship, which Woods won for his fifth major. Nicklaus rarely has an interview without someone asking about whether Woods can break his record in the majors.

Snead won for the 82nd and final time in 1965.

At the time, only two other players had more than 50 wins — Ben Hogan (64) and Byron Nelson (52).

When Snead died in 2002, Woods only had 30 wins. He wasn’t even close.

He is now.