"How many athletes, of any era, can honestly say the same?"

"To be there and see the way other people react around him? Crazy. No other athlete in the world has a following like this guy.

"I've told this to a lot of people the last week and a half: I've been fortunate enough to be around some pretty cool people in my life, whether they're athletes or movie stars,'' Matthew Tkachuk is saying. "But I've never been in awe of a person the way I was watching Tiger Woods play golf at the PGA Championship.

The echoes of which may yet be quietly reverberating around the Robert Trent Jones designed layout located in the suburb of Town and Country, Miss.

Count his voice among the bordering-on primal roar that shook 121-year-old Bellerive Country Club to its stately foundations a couple of weekends ago.

Brooks Koepka may have hung on to claim his second major of the year but the Woods' closing 66-64 to finish second, two shots back, is what created the weekend buzz and sent TV ratings skyrocketing.

"When he's in the hunt on Sunday, everyone's watching him. I was no different."

Tkachuk, as no Flames' partisan needs reminding, missed the final dozen games of last season - as a playoff spot hung precariously in the balance - after toppling backwards, almost in slow motion, over fallen NY Islanders' super-rookie Matthew Barzal on the night of March 11 at the Scotiabank Saddledome.

His unique blend of subtlety and sass was sorely missed at the most crucial point of the season.

"The summer's been good but I had a little bit of a later start than I would've liked or had planned, because of what I went through at the end of last year,'' he says.

"I started gearing up in later May, started in on the training more, getting my base back. Plus a couple of good vacations, at Cape Cod over the Fourth of July, which is fun, and then the PGA.

"The part that sucks is that I haven't played a game since March 10 and I felt this summer has been so long.

"There's no worse feeling than being out of it. So everything I've done this summer is to be as healthy as possible."

Video: Matthew Tkachuk's best plays in 2017-18

Which brings us to what lies ahead …

"We need a great year,'' Tkachuk says with typical bluntness. "We have to have one. I mean, it's time to really start dialing it in.

"It's time to expect great things out of ourselves and out of our team. We should all have high hopes, high expectations."

Over the summer months, of course, GM Brad Treliving has been characteristically busy. While not major plastic surgery in a Micheal Jackson/Wayne Newton sense, what he's performed on the Flames' roster is definitely more than a nip-'n-tuck procedure.

James Neal. Derek Ryan. Noah Hanifin. Elias Lindholm. Austin Czarnik. Each and every one expected to make an impact, most immediately.

"These guys,'' says Tkachuk, "expect to win. Whether you signed on as a free agent or are here via trade, you're coming to Calgary because you see the team we have and can envision success.

"I'm not speaking from experience, of course, but a guy like James Neal, I assume, is even hungrier to get back to a final, and finish the job this time, after the past two years. And he chose Calgary as potentially the place to do that.

"That excites me.

"To have a guy who's been on hockey's ultimate stage, you can't put a price tag on that."

Of course, a lot will be expected of Tkachuk this season, too, as he continues to develop into a bona fide star.

"I more look it at as everyone on our team, in our organization, has pressure on themselves,'' he says. "Whether you have one year left on your deal, two years or seven or eight. Whether you're a veteran or in your first, second or third years.

"You cannot think about yourself - at all.

"For us, it's all about the team.

"I know a lot of guys are sick about how the last couple years have gone. What are our goals as a team this year and what as an individual can you do to help achieve those goals (is the mission).

"That's the only thing that matters.

"If people are putting themselves ahead of the group this year, I don't want that around. And I know nobody else does, either.

"We have to believe in ourselves, what we're capable of, and we can do great things."

Same as a certain redemption-seeking Tiger at the 2018 PGA Championship.

"I've played Bellerive,'' says the St. Louis-born Tkachuk. "To be honest, I don't remember what I shot when I played there last summer.

"I'm gonna give you a rough guess at around an 83 or an 84.

"But … I did birdie Hole 3, short par-3 over water. And No. 17, too, a short par-4 at the PGA, which plays as a par-5 for the rest of us.

"That's the hole Tiger screwed up on on Sunday. So I can say I birdied a hole that Tiger Woods parred.

"I definitely won't let that one go."