He has known nothing but success, his only view being from the top of the mountain. Mundane concerns such as actually qualifying to play in a golf tournament have never before been a part of the Tiger Woods experience. But as Bill Russell once said after his Celtics had fallen behind, 2-0, in a playoff series, “These new experiences keep piling up.’’

It’s a new experience for us, too. This idea of a vulnerable Tiger Woods needs some getting used to.

Tiger comes here to the Deutsche Bank Championship at No. 65 on the FedEx Cup points list. He has been fortunate enough to maintain his official No. 1 ranking in the world pecking order — thanks mainly to the many creative ways in which Phil Mickelson has found to avoid taking the lead — but that is due to the work of the pre-Thanksgiving Tiger. The post-Thanksgiving Tiger has 64 guys ahead of him in the battle for the 2010 FedEx Cup.

Gotta be weird to see yourself at 65, eh, Tiger?

“Yes, and a little bit of a no, too, as well, just because of obviously what’s transpired this year,’’ he said. “It’s been a different year.’’

In normal times, no one would be worrying about Tiger advancing to the next phase of the FedEx Cup, which is next week’s tournament at Cog Hill in suburban Chicago. If he manages to remain among the top 70 by the conclusion of the Deutsche Bank Monday, he will advance. If he stumbles and falls out of the top 70, he won’t.

And that would be historic.

The question was asked: Has he ever been healthy, ready to go, eager to participate, and yet denied an opportunity to play in a golf tournament?

“Not that I can recall, no,’’ he replied. “You’d have to do your research on that one.’’

Even as an amateur?

“Do your research,’’ he said. “I don’t know.’’

I’m not buying that, and neither should you. Tiger knows. He is his own personal historian. Go ahead. Ask him what club he used for his second shot on the third hole of the 1999 PGA at Medinah, or how long the lag putt was on the first hole in the 2005 Open at St. Andrews. He’ll know.

So the answer to the question is n-o, no. Playing for his competitive life on a week-to-week basis is an entirely new experience.

Bill Parcells had a phrase for what the 2010 Tiger has become on the PGA Tour: A JAG, Just Another Guy.

Start with the obvious. He is winless this season. The average guy doesn’t win. He makes cuts. He makes money. But he doesn’t win. The average guy wins a couple of tournaments over the course of his career. Or maybe he doesn’t. It is not necessary to win an event to earn a very comfortable living on the PGA Tour. For scores of guys out there, winning would be nice, but simply keeping the card is far more important. They play it safe. Their god is the paycheck, not the trophy.

Tiger has no acquaintance with that mentality. It must be galling for him to find himself in the company of all those cautious JAGs.

His performance last week at The Barclays had JAG written all over it. JAGs can have very good days on occasion. They just don’t have enough of them to win. Tiger raised everyone’s expectation level with a dazzling 6-under-par 65 on Day One. He hit fairways. He hit greens. He sank putts. He was the entire package. This was the pre-Thanksgiving Tiger.

He followed that up with a 73 and a 72, dropping himself out of contention. He had continued success off the tee (leaving his driver in the bag), but he just couldn’t putt. But he finished up with a 67. By JAG standards, it was a very good week. He finished T-12, good for $157,500. That’s significant money for a JAG. Tiger, meanwhile, may have forgotten to pick up the check.

Is he honestly, really, a card-carrying journeyman JAG? Is that his fate, now and forever? Goodness, gracious, golly gee, no. Do you believe that? I sure don’t.

But in order to relinquish his current JAG status, he has to stop playing like one and start playing like the blueblood he once was. And that means playing blueblood golf on a consistent basis, not in some stop-and-start, JAG-like manner.

Not for the first time in his unique career, he is reinventing himself on the fly. His new swing adviser (he has not officially hired him as a coach) is Sean Foley, who follows Hank Haney, who followed Butch Harmon.

“They’re three different philosophies, three different ways to hit a golf ball,’’ Woods explained. “I went through two changes with Butch, a swing change with Hank, and now with Sean. There’s a lot of learning to different philosophies, and probably the biggest thing is you first have to understand that philosophy in order to buy into it, and then be committed to it.’’

Tiger has a lot to think about these days. He has to repair his shattered public image. He has to adjust to the complicated lifestyle of a divorced father eager to see his children. He has to fix what ails his game. And he has to concern himself with some real competition in the person of extraordinarily talented 20-somethings who have both the ability and the moxie the 30-somethings behind him never had.

“Well, it’s not just the 20-somethings,’’ he pointed out. “Now they’ve got the teens. Ryo [Ishikawa] is, what, 19, 18 now? He’s won, what, six times over there in Japan? He shot 58. I mean, it’s not just the 20-somethings. Now it’s the teens. These guys are just better earlier.’’

A kid who was 6 years old when Tiger won his first major is now part of Tiger’s new PGA reality. Tiger’s “normal’’ sure isn’t what it used to be.

Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist and host of Globe 10.0 on Boston.com. He can be reached at ryan@globe.com.