Jack did, from 1968-69 (3 years between majors effectively 67 US Open to 70 British)-his body basically caught up to him, and he had to lose weight to get back to where he was. Don’t think he cheated on his wife tho.
I’d argue that Tiger is pretty close to his peak again, except for putting. His bogeys on Thursday and Friday were all three putts. His driving on Thursday was great and on Friday he got screwed by the weather where no one broke par in the afternoon. Today he was eight shots back and had to try to make a move. He tried to get on a par five in two and hit the ball in some gorse and had to take an unplayable, and he was out of it then.
The scores on Friday afternoon averaged five shots higher than the morning rounds. If not for a bad draw, he could have come into today with a score of -9 and he wouldn’t have had to press so much.
Tiger switched putters this week for the first time in a decade. He’s got some putting issues but the rest of his game looks under control.
St. Andrews is so different that it is difficult to say that. His putting sucks but his chipping has not saved him at all. He is driving all over the place and club selection has been iffy. But this week may not translate to American golf. I hope not.
Tiger had the will and concentration to keep disaster away. He could always battle it and save par. He is not showing that now.
His driving has been extremely good all week.
It did not look that way to me.
The announcers said that Tigers incredible concentration was lacking. They also made the point that his troubles are on going and it won’t be tomorrow that all will be well. There is a possibility that he will never get it back. The aura of invincibility harmed his adversaries while it buoyed his confidence. That seems to be gone. Tiger fed off that fear the other players had. Now he has to earn it back. But the opposite has occurred. He has become just another golfer. Now it is “Tiger who”.
If Tiger resolves his personal issues and then goes a full season afterward without sniffing a win or looking as sharp as he used to, then I’ll accept that he’s no longer a dominant player.
But, for now, there is a clear and obvious reason for his on-course focus and performance to suffer, and in the past he has always come back from his (relative) slumps. Until he goes a stretch of years without recapturing his top form I will continue expecting him to do so and marvelling at how quickly the press and his detractors forget what has happened each and every time he’s been down in the past.
The issue is that, by the time he (presumably) un-fucks his personal life and straightens out his mental game (which is currently a total shambles), he’ll be hitting the aging downcurve, which for male golfers at least starts plummetting pretty steeply past age 35. IOW eventually he won’t ever come back.
The big question is… come back to WHAT?
It’s not as if Tiger stinks and is embarrassing himself. He’s STILL damn good, and there’s no reason he can’t win a lot more tournaments, including a few majors, and make a lot of money.
What I don’t think he CAN do (ever) is dominate the PGA tour again.
The only apt comparison I can come up with is… Wayne Gretzky, in the Nineties. Greztky USED to be head and shoulders above everybody else. In his prime, he was twice as good as anybody else on the ice and everybody else knew it. But by the Nineties, he wasn’t that player any more, and it was obvious.
Gretzky wasn’t a horrible center in the Nineties. He was a very solid, occasionally great center for the Kings and Rangers. There’s absolutely no shame in being a very good NHL center! As long as he was enjoying the game and as long as some team thought he could help them, there was NO reason he shouldn’t keep playing as long as he could. But by 1995, ANY fan who asked “Can Gretzky get it back” was delusional. The answer was, obviously, “No.”
Gretzky still had GOOD years ahead of him. Tiger Woods still has good years ahead of him. But dominance isn’t permanent.
Gretzky did not blow up his aura. He was always " the great one". Tiger wrecked everything when he was whoring around. He is not held in awe and players do not feel they are playing for 2nd place. They now feel they can beat him. I doubt that he can ever get that aura of invincibility back.
Not just the other players, but also TV. I was one of the few who hated what I considered the excessive coverage of Tiger in any event he played - whether he was in contention or not. Now, it is downright shocking for them not to show every shot of his, in addition to every practice swing, every discussion with his asshole caddy, and every lenghthy sizing up of every damn putt. It has been a dramatic change.
You might be right, but I don’t buy it yet. Tiger’s aura was never based on his public image. It was based on his results. His winning percentage over the course of his career says it all. If he gets back to anything close to that in the next year or two he will still be the best player on tour by a clear margin.
As for age…come on. I think it’s another 6-7 years before Tiger’s physical abilities begin to erode. Mickelson is 40+ and playing some of the best golf of his life. Look at Vijay, Kenny Perry, Fred Couples, etc. 34, or however old Tiger is at the moment, is hardly an advanced age by golfing standards, especially given his level of fitness.
while golf is physically taxing it is also very mental. right now, his head is not screwed on straight, it appears to me. and every tournament that he goes out and doesn’t win just gives greater confidence to the rest of the folks.
part of his “greatness”, i believe, was an intimidation factor that he had on the competition. the rest of the field just kind of figured they were playing for second and they fulfilled that prophecy.
i don’t think the rest of the tour is that scared of him anymore. and that makes it much more difficult.
Vijay Singh hasn’t won a major since 2004, and hasn’t contended in one (top 10) since 2007. Ernie Els, still only 40 years old, has missed the last 3 Masters cuts (a tournament he formerly contended in on a regular basis), and, while he does have 5 top tens over the last 5 years, hasn’t won a major since 2002 (and has not even had any of his formerly patented 2nd place finishes since 2004). I admire what Tom Watson almost did last year (and when he stole majors from Jack I absolutely hated the little essobee), and Freddy made some noise in this year’s Masters (after 2 straight missed cuts), but…
The point is that golfers decline pretty steeply, as a group, after age 35-even if you study the issue in a half-assed way, you simply can’t miss it. Doesn’t mean they can’t win as they get older, but the odds become steeper, and all the while a bunch of young kids are sharpening their irons and improving their games. And golfers already peak at a relatively advanced age as it is, compared to other sports-at age 34, Pete Sampras had already hung them up 2 years earlier. In other words their experience is already serving as a hedge against age as they move into their 30’s-but that will only help stave off the natural aging process for so long. Tiger has likely been declining physically for the past few years, and then had to fight off a serious leg injury to boot, and now appears to have a totally knackered mental game on top of that. But I won’t write him off just yet (people did that to Jack, and on a couple of occasions at least he proved them wrong). [Phil’s late career resurgence coincides I’d say with an improved mental approach-this year’s Masters was proof of that, despite his swashbucking shot at 13 around the tree for birdie.]
You can guess that Tiger being in better condition may be physically able to play longer ,even though he has had severe knee trouble. But a big part of the game is mental. He is putting terribly and not saving through his short game. He does not play enough to work it out quickly. If he jumps into the tour and starts playing regularly ,I think he will get there faster.
The fact that so many people EXPECT Tiger to resume his position of utter dominance at his age is another indication that people just don’t take golf seriously as a sport.
Anybody else remember how, all through the Eighties, commentators and sportswriters would say (with completely straight faces!) that Michael Jordan was going to join the PGA tour after he retired from basketball? The very idea is PREPOSTEROUS on its face! The champions of golf are guys who’ve been working and practicing every day since they were little kids… but otherwise sane, intelligent people really believed that Michael Jordan could take up golf as an adult, play a little in his spare time, and acquire the same skills that it took Nick Faldo and Ben Crenshaw a lifetime to build.
NOBODY would believe that about a sport he took seriously, but people DID believe it- not only because Jordan was such a great athlete, but because so many people don’t think of golf as a true sport or of golfers as real athletes. The game just doesn’t LOOK that hard! The guys who excel at it frequently don’t LOOK like real athletes. So, naturally, many people figured Michael Jordan really could compete with rotund Colin Montgomerie and walrus-like Craig Stadler! NOBODY in the bleachers thinks he could replace Peyton Manning or LeBron James, but lots of us look at Angel Cabrera golf and think, “Heck, I could do that.”
That’s ALSO why many people look at Tiger Woods and think, “He’s ONLY 35. Oh sure, in football or basketball or any other REAL sport, he’d be over the hill… but in golf, there’s no reason he can’t keep dominating for another 10 or 15 years.”
That shows a lack of respect for the physical tools and skills it takes to excel at golf. VERY few golfers have continued to win majors after the age of 35. ONLY Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player have won 4 or more majors after the age of 35. Golf is perceived as an old man’s game, but at the elite level, it’s NOT. Moreover, old age tends to affect the short game BEFORE it affects drives! It seems counterintuitive, I know. Non-golfers probably figure putting and chipping are the easiest parts of golf, the part a 75 year old lady can handle… but in reality, a 45 year old Tiger Woods will probably still hit long, long drives. He just won’t be able to sink all the big putts that USED to save him in big matches.
I am NOT saying “Tiger stinks and should quit.” I am NOT saying “he’ll never win another major.” I AM saying “Tiger WAS head and shoulders above every other player on the tour for a long time. He WAS the greatest golfer ever. Now? He’s still very good, but eventually, age catches up to EVERY athlete. He still has good years, maybe even VERY good years ahead of him, but he’s NEVER going to be utterly dominant again.”
Ben Hogan won 8 of his 11 majors after age 35.
In fact he won 6 of them after getting hit by a greyhound bus.
Yes, he did- I stand corrected.
How about we revise my previous statement to “In my lifetime (I was born in 1961), nobody but Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player has won 4+ majors after the age of 35?”
Well in your lifetime (and mine, I was born in 1961 as well) there has been only 9 players who have won 4 or more majors. so 22.2% of them have won 4 or more after age 35. (Palmer won 4 majors before I was born and Player won one)
Jack Nicklaus (18)
Tiger Woods (14)
Gary Player (8)
Tom Watson (8)
Nick Faldo (6)
Lee Trevino (6)
Seve Ballesteros (5)
Phil Mickelson (4)
Ray Floyd (4)
No.