The Masters Coming Up

The Masters starts this Thursday so I figured now would be a good time to offer some thoughts on Tiger Woods

I have been a huge fan of Woods for a long time now, much like millions of other Americans, but I think the magnitude of what he is doing may be overlooked because of the sport he chooses. There are very few athletes over the past few decades who have dominated their sports to the extent that Tiger has, from both a statistical and a winning standpoint.
Michael Jordan is one of the greatest American athletes of all-time, but he did not set a statitsical standard in the NBA; that was set long before by Wilt, Oscar, and Kareem. Taking nothing away from MJ's absurd streak of championships, it is often difficult to assess exactly how much of the credit belongs to him because he played a team sport with a Hall of Fame coach and another All-Timer. While I in no way think that Jordan is any less of an athlete, the neverending debates we hear everyday about whether Kobe or Lebron has a better supporting cast just shows that in team sports, it cannot be all about one player.
Unless, of course, you are Wayne Gretzky or Babe Ruth, who are the only athletes in sports history to crush prior records while winning championships (Had Wilt won more titles, he'd be on that list; had MJ averaged 50 a game during his prime, he'd be on the list). For baseball it is easier to compare players because the game is, in essence, one-on-one.
So where would Tiger rank in comparison to the other legends of sport? First we have to consider the magnitude of what Tiger has done and dispel one criticism of his career.

The major difference between winning championships in golf or tennis, as oppose to winning in the major team sports, is the idea of "peaking." Every year we see teams catch fire in the regular season and then fade in the playoffs. Just this year alone the following teams peaked in the regular season and then struggled in the post-season: Tennessee men's basketball, the Cowboys, the Mets, the Rockets, and, most epically, the Patriots. Then there are those teams that peaked at the right time: the Spurs, the Giants, Kansas and, most epically, the Rockies. As I noted before, only the truly great teams peak consitently come playoff-time (What does it say about the true merit of the Rockies making the World Series that they got off to a slow-start this year? Maybe they just weren't that good to begin with...)
Well, let's get back to golf. The reason winning the Grand Slam, all 4 majors in one calender year, is so difficult has less to do with the competition of the field or the severity of the golf course than to do with the near-impossible task of performing at your highest capable level on 4 separate occasions. Now combine this with the fact that golf is not one-on-one but Man v Field and Man v Nature and the result is a daunting notion. No golfer in the modern era has approached the sort of dominance Tiger has because golf is one of the hardest sports to dominate. For every Major victory Jack Nicklaus has, he has a 2nd place finish. That is as telling a statistic as any. The greatest golfer of all time, as it stands now, had a chance at doubling his record for Major wins but time and again fell victim to golf's challanges. I've heard experts say that Nicklaus's 19 Major runner-ups is an amazing feat as well. Well, who thinks Tiger will approach that number? He would sooner finish in 30th than accept a runner-up when the title was in reach.

Another bash on Tiger is the lack of competition present in golf right now. Nicklaus had Palmer, Watson, Player, and the likes. To that I say, it's not the lack of talent, but the mental strain Tiger has put on anyone challenging him in tournaments. What players will actually claim to be competing for first if Woods were in the field. Only the brash. What happened to the big 4 of Mickelson, Vijay, Goosen, and Els capable of stepping up to Tiger. That hasn't worked out too well. Els just recently won his first tournament in something like 4 years. 4 years!! That is not testament to a lack of skill, but to a culture in which trying to win has become such a mental and physical strain when opposing Woods that a top-5 paycheck would do just fine.

At the end of the day, it's always going to be difficult to compare success in golf with success in the major sports because of the idea that golf is more a game than a sport. But what he is doing is more impressive than any other accomplishments we have seen, and, when in 40 years ESPN makes a Sports Century and a Half List, Tiger's name should be resting firmly next to the Number 1 Slot, ahead of, respectively, Ruth, Jordan, Gretzky, and Ali.