There's a difference
Listen, I'm in awe of what Tiger Woods did this past weekend at Medinah en route to his 12th major championship, and I'm in awe of what he has done in 10 short years of being a professional golfer. However, this column by ESPN's Gene Wojciechowski is beyond absurd.
Tiger Woods ... the greatest athlete ever?
You're kidding me, right Gene? Tiger's not even the greatest golfer of all time (yet), and we're proclaiming him the athlete of all athletes.
Please.
I won't even get started on the whole 'are golfers really athletes' debate and just leave it at this ... baseball was Jackie Robinson's fourth-best sport at UCLA, as he twice led the Pac-10 in scoring as a point guard, won an individual national championship in the long jump, was an All-American halfback in football and, oh yeah, just happened to shatter the color barrier in Major League Basebal en route to a Hall of Fame career.
Make no mistake, I consider Woods easily one of the four greatest golfers of all time, along with Jack Nicklaus, Bobby Jones and Ben Hogan. And I have little doubt that, within the next decade, Woods will pick up seven additional major titles to surpass The Golden Bear's once-insurmountable mark of 18 major victories.
But there is more to being the 'best' than simply piling up an absurd amount of wins. There's poise and determination and an unflappable spirit which puts you ahead of your best competition. And I've never seen any athlete, outside of Michael Jordan, who has the focus and concentration Woods possesses. It's almost uncanny to sit back and watch the way he simply dominates not just the rest of the playing field, but the golf course itself.
Woods has all of the right ingredients to be the best golfer ... except for that one he has absolutely no control over.
Consider who Nicklaus beat week-in and week-out en route to his 18 majors (and 73 overall PGA Tour wins). Arnold Palmer. Gary Player. Tom Watson. Johnny Miller.
Ponder who Hogan held off time and time again. Sam Snead. Byron Nelson.
Jones? Try Walter Hagen. Maybe Gene Sarazen.
Who's the top rival for Woods? Phil Mickelson? Sure, he's my favorite golfer and he's captured three majors in the past three years, but has Lefty stared down the world No. 1 golfer yet?
Anyone else ... Ernie Els ... Sergio Garcia ... Retief Goosen ... David Duval.
All of Woods' rivals, save Mickelson, would be middle-of-the-pack players compared with those top competitors like Palmer or Sarazen or Snead.
Woods is an incredible talent who is by far the best golfer on the planet. However, my point in all of this is to ask how would he react if someone who was his equal matched him shot-for-shot on the back nine in a major championship? And the answer is that we don't have the slightest idea.
We watched Nicklaus go toe-to-toe with Palmer, arguably one of the greatest to ever play the game, and elevate his game to the next level. With Woods, we haven't seen that happen yet. The one time it did, in the 2000 PGA Championship, a journeyman named Bob May fired a 66 in the final round and forced Woods to extra holes, where the latter barely hung to pick up the title.
How would Woods respond if May was replaced by someone who shared his own shotmaking ability and possessed the same steely nerves? What would he do if this mythical rival smacked his approach shot on the 72nd hole of The Masters to within four feet of the hole?
Until that happens, and until we know what Tiger's next step would be, I can't confidently say Woods is the best golfer in history.
Tiger Woods ... the greatest athlete ever?
You're kidding me, right Gene? Tiger's not even the greatest golfer of all time (yet), and we're proclaiming him the athlete of all athletes.
Please.
I won't even get started on the whole 'are golfers really athletes' debate and just leave it at this ... baseball was Jackie Robinson's fourth-best sport at UCLA, as he twice led the Pac-10 in scoring as a point guard, won an individual national championship in the long jump, was an All-American halfback in football and, oh yeah, just happened to shatter the color barrier in Major League Basebal en route to a Hall of Fame career.
Make no mistake, I consider Woods easily one of the four greatest golfers of all time, along with Jack Nicklaus, Bobby Jones and Ben Hogan. And I have little doubt that, within the next decade, Woods will pick up seven additional major titles to surpass The Golden Bear's once-insurmountable mark of 18 major victories.
But there is more to being the 'best' than simply piling up an absurd amount of wins. There's poise and determination and an unflappable spirit which puts you ahead of your best competition. And I've never seen any athlete, outside of Michael Jordan, who has the focus and concentration Woods possesses. It's almost uncanny to sit back and watch the way he simply dominates not just the rest of the playing field, but the golf course itself.
Woods has all of the right ingredients to be the best golfer ... except for that one he has absolutely no control over.
Consider who Nicklaus beat week-in and week-out en route to his 18 majors (and 73 overall PGA Tour wins). Arnold Palmer. Gary Player. Tom Watson. Johnny Miller.
Ponder who Hogan held off time and time again. Sam Snead. Byron Nelson.
Jones? Try Walter Hagen. Maybe Gene Sarazen.
Who's the top rival for Woods? Phil Mickelson? Sure, he's my favorite golfer and he's captured three majors in the past three years, but has Lefty stared down the world No. 1 golfer yet?
Anyone else ... Ernie Els ... Sergio Garcia ... Retief Goosen ... David Duval.
All of Woods' rivals, save Mickelson, would be middle-of-the-pack players compared with those top competitors like Palmer or Sarazen or Snead.
Woods is an incredible talent who is by far the best golfer on the planet. However, my point in all of this is to ask how would he react if someone who was his equal matched him shot-for-shot on the back nine in a major championship? And the answer is that we don't have the slightest idea.
We watched Nicklaus go toe-to-toe with Palmer, arguably one of the greatest to ever play the game, and elevate his game to the next level. With Woods, we haven't seen that happen yet. The one time it did, in the 2000 PGA Championship, a journeyman named Bob May fired a 66 in the final round and forced Woods to extra holes, where the latter barely hung to pick up the title.
How would Woods respond if May was replaced by someone who shared his own shotmaking ability and possessed the same steely nerves? What would he do if this mythical rival smacked his approach shot on the 72nd hole of The Masters to within four feet of the hole?
Until that happens, and until we know what Tiger's next step would be, I can't confidently say Woods is the best golfer in history.
posted by Jmac at 5:48 PM
7 Comments:
Two words, Gene: calm down.
Darren
You know Corleone, I considered the same thing concerning Jordan. It's a little more awkward in team sports, but at the same time Jordan still had Barkley (who he beat in 1993), and he did best Magic to win the first championship. And we don't give as much credit as we should to the duo of Karl Malone and John Stockton, who Jordan beat in consecutive years.
I suppose the caveat would be that Jordan had the rivals in the first of the three-peats, but by the second round of them had established himself as the premier player.
Yeah, Wilt was a bastard on the court -- he just wouldn't stop. Great guy off the court, though. I remember all the smack talking we would do during the games. Ah, the memories.
He got the best of me on many occasions, but I'll recall fondly all those moments -- good and bad.
The great thing about golf that separates it from all other sports is that the individual not only faces the competition of its fellow competitors, but also that of the golf course itself. What makes Tiger Woods so special is that he not only dominates his peers, but he also destroys the golf courses that have been around since all those names you mentioned were contemporaries.
The most famous example was when Augusta National was literally Tiger-proofed. Golf courses are getting longer and longer to combat the technology, but a 7,000 yard par 70 is a bit ridiculous.
Perhaps Tiger's greatest accomplishment was winning a U.S. Open by 15 shots. The second place competitor was +3. This past week, he was close to winning a major championship at -20, which had never been done before. It's these types of things that will go on the resume when it's time to declare the "greatest ever." Who finished second won't enter into it.
It's a farce to think that Tiger is just "more talented" than everyone else. All tour professionals are very talented golfers, some I would consider better ball-strikers than Tiger. But he has the intangibles that no one else can seem to match. He won the British Open only playing his irons. Who else on the PGA Tour has the balls to do that?
Good points.
It's coming across like I'm downplaying Tiger's run, which I don't want to do at all. The man is ridiculous, and he may be the best. It's those intangibles - particularly the fact that nothing wavers him.
60 Minutes did a piece on him prior to The Masters, and he said that he developed that concentration because his father would loudly berate him all throughout his practice sessions and practice rounds - even during his swing - when he was, like, seven. It's quite possible that few other golfers endured the same type of mental preparation that Tiger did.
I mean look at what Tiger did this past Sunday. Luke Donald is crazy talented, but like you said, he didn't have those intanglibles. He looked scared because, well, he was scared. When Tiger's draining putts left and right and hitting his approaches to within eight feet, you feel helpless when you make one mistake.
As an aside, another thing I noticed this past weekend about his game, was that he always manages to be just within his opponent on the green ... and then he studies his opponent's putt and he will make it by following the same read where his opponent will not. He did that to Donald over and over again on the front nine on Sunday.
My point was, I suppose, if we take someone who had those same intangibles and stick them in a final round pairing with Tiger, then he'd be tested. Jack had Arnie, who probably would have won 10 more majors if The Golden Bear didn't exist.
Also, and to be 'that guy' ... you've got to consider the equipment equation. Had Bobby Jones or Jack played with the equipment today - the equipment that turns Stewart Cink into Happy Gilmore - than those guys would have been even more lethal on the course. Jack, in particular, might have won 30 majors.
Not necessarily true. After Jack and Arnie began to take things over in the early 1960s - particularly Jack since his distance off the tee was incredible for the day - many courses starting tinkering with their layouts.
Probably not as drastic as the Tiger-proofing series we saw in the late 1990s, but it was happening.
I don't think we're discussing who 'could' have won more, but I'm with you completely - Ben Hogan is the most overlooked golfer on the planet.
You're right, he didn't regularly travel to the British Open. The year he did, in 1953, he won the freakin' thing, which was his third major of the year ... and was logistically unable to try and win the Grand Slam since the PGA Championship was held at the exact same time as the British Open. That year he won five of the six tournaments he entered, which is crazy good.
Plus you have to think that if his career wasn't fragmented by World War II and the horrific car crash in 1949, he'd have won between 15 and 20 major championships ... if we revise it and consider the Western Open, then he's looking pretty good.
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