The 25-year-old arrived at Southern Hills, Tulsa as holder of all four Major titles, but he was never in contention to lift this trophy, which he won at Pebble Beach last year.

Woods, who according to coach Butch Harmon, entered the tournament with an injury, refused to make excuses after his failure to continue his winning sequence

"It's hard for me to say it was a streak, it covered such a long period of time," Woods said of his unprecedented run of four straight professional Majors, which started with his devastating victory at the US Open last year.

"It was fun to win four Majors in a row, more than anything else I enjoyed giving myself a chance on the back nine on Sunday," he said.

The real damage to Woods' bid for his second straight US Open title was done in the first two rounds, which left him at five-over par.

"Did I execute every shot the way I wanted? No," Woods said.

"But I played as hard as I could. There's no regrets. There's nothing wrong with the way I played.

"At 16 I hit a drive that was perfect -- a high fade -- it kicked straight left into the rough and was blocked by a tree. What can you do about that," Woods said.

Woods admitted that the thought of winning was still in his mind with seven holes remaining.

"I figured if I could birdie 12, and possibly give myself an eagle chance on 13 ... if I could have just got a few more it would have been nice," he said.

"The hard part was missing that putt on 12," Woods said of the five footer that went wide.

"Once I realised there really wasn't a chance to win ... you've got to keep fighting," he said. "You can't just dog it."

But the 25-year-old said he wouldn't dwell on the fact that, for one more year at least, a modern Grand Slam in a single calendar year is out of the question.

"That's the great thing about our game," Woods said.

"Once your week is over, it's done."