Tiger Woods' search for a 15th major victory will have to go on after world number 110 YE Yang stormed to victory in the 91st US PGA Championship.

Yang sent down a brilliant bunker shot for eagle at the par-four 14th while the world number one struggled with his putter at Hazeltine National yet again.

Woods had never lost a 54-hole lead in his previous 14 major wins but on a rain-softened course South Korean Yang — who picked up his first US PGA Tour victory earlier this season at the Honda Classic — became the first Asian-born golfer to win a men’s major.

While Woods shot a 75, Yang produced a stunning performance to hit 70 on his final round and finish on eight under, three shots clear of Woods.

Woods had begun the fourth round with a two-shot lead at eight under par over Yang and defending champion Padraig Harrington.

Holywood’s Rory McIlroy was in stunning form, finishing tied for third position with Lee Westwood on three under, but a nightmare unfolded for Harrington.

He had contended last Sunday with Woods at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational until playing a disastrous 16th hole in Akron, Ohio, and the Irishman's reign as PGA champion was undone in one hole seven days later with a calamity at the par-three eighth, a quintuple-bogey eight having found the right-sided lake off the tee and from out of heavy left greenside rough.

That sent him freefalling to one over and Harrington carded a six over par 78 to finish level par, alongside Graeme McDowell.

Woods, with a victory, would have joined Jack Nicklaus and Walter Hagen as the only players to win five PGA Championship titles.

He would have also pulled within three victories of tying Nicklaus for the most major titles of all time.

But Yang upped the ante and his second shot on the 18th hole sealed an emphatic win.

While Woods has five US PGA Tour victories this season, he’s yet to win a major, having tied for sixth at the Masters Tournament and US Open before failing to qualify for the final two rounds at the Open Championship.

His failure to win the Wanamaker Trophy meant it was the first time since 2004 that he’s failed to win one of the year’s four major championships.

Also thinking of what might have been was Harrington.

For the second time in seven days, his dreams of victory vanished without trace in a greenside pond.

Exactly one week after his hopes of beating Woods at the Bridgestone Invitational were dashed by a treble-bogey eight at Firestone's 16th hole, Harrington ran up another heartbreaking eight yesterday.

This time, however, the Dubliner knocked two balls into the water into the water for a horrible quintuple-bogey.

If his watery demise at Firestone has been stunning, Harrington's efforts on the 167-yard eighth hole at Hazeltine were grotesque, unbelievable and bizarre, though hardly unprecedented.

After playing the opening seven holes in straight par, Harrington was just one stroke behind the leader, Woods, as he walked to the tee at eight.

Yet a true catalogue of disaster started when he blocked his 6-iron into the water short and to the right of the green. Clearly shaken, Harrington's wedge from the drop zone was so wayward, his playing companion Henrick Stenson and caddie had to duck as they stood under a tree well to the left of the hole.

From the rough, Harrington then hit his fourth shot into the water, instantly dropped the ball at his feet; duffed the sixth shot, advancing it only five or six yards, and then got up and down, at last, for his eight.

The exhausted Irishman had warned on Saturday night that he'd need the adrenaline and excitement of being in contention to sustain his challenge. “I'm doing okay as long as things keep going (but) I wouldn't want to get on the slippery slope the other way,” he said.