The first one that came to mind was Edwin Moses in the 400m hurdles.
Yeah, but he didn’t actually make it to the Promised Land, so there’s the longevity question all over again.
He did? The last time I saw Nicklaus speak on the subject, he wasn’t nearly so generous.
“There isn’t a flaw in his golf or his makeup. He will win more majors than Arnold Palmer and me combined. Somebody is going to dust my records. It might as well be Tiger, because he’s such a great kid.” - Nicklaus
Can’t find the date, but it’s a few years back.
No idea how to quantify this (if even possible), but it sure seemed to me like many players in Jack’s prime (yes he was my idol) often rose to the occasion and challenged him on a number of occasions. I mean just look at his top ten finishes in majors during the 70’s-only out of the top 10 a meager 5 times in 40 tourneys. But he won “only” 8 of them. If it wasn’t Trevino or Watson it was someone else stealing a title from him. With Tiger tho it always seemed like when he was on nobody else bothered to play up to his level. Oh sure he’s had his share of disappointments (4 2nds and a 3rd the past two years), but more often than not players would wilt in the face of his talent. My probably misformatted attempt to quantify this:
…Wins…Top.Ten…Outside.TT
Jack ('70-'79)…8…35…5
Tiger ('98-'08)…13…25…15
Tiger, when he contends, wins more than 50% of the time. Jack, less than 25%. Perhaps in Heaven/Future Virtual Reality Universe or somesuch they can both go head to head in their primes and we can then see who is the best (note Jack beat out Tiger in the 1998 Masters).
Alexander Karelin is my poster boy for the concept of “dominating” a sport. In a one-on-one sport, where every competitor knows him and can train specifically to compete against him, this guy went 12 years without losing a match and 6 years without losing a single point in his matches.
I’ve seen an interview with Jack where he basically said he was better than Tiger is now. He also said he would expect Tiger to be equally as confident of his own abilities.
Saying “he’ll break my records” is a bit different than saying “he’s the best ever”.
It is also interesting to point out that the numbers above are comparing the middle-end of Jack’s career against the beginning of Tiger’s
Well, but it’s the best comparison you have from Nicklaus, because it avoids his one true slump, the '67 to '70 drought that not only was devoid of majors, but was devoid of real dominating play on his part on tour as well. His numbers, I think, get even worse when you look at any period that includes that dry spell.
But I will point out that the numbers are an argument that Woods is NOT as dominant as Nicklaus was, in one very important aspect: When Woods is on, he’s very hard to beat. But when he’s not on, he can’t elevate his game to the level Nicklaus did. Nicklaus was ALWAYS in the hunt, as the numbers show. Tiger produces relatively few 2ds and 3ds, whereas Jack was known for the fact he had almost as many of EACH as he did wins. So Jack was ALWAYS there, making you think. Tiger, well, you know by sometime on Friday if Tiger has his game or not.
Which brings up another aspect in which Jack was better than Tiger: come-from-behind wins. We all know about the “Nicklaus charge,” that sound that reverberated through the trees when Jack was making a run on a Sunday. I heard it in person both in '82 when he made his run at Watson at Pebble Beach, and in '83 when he made his run at Sutton at Riviera. While he didn’t win either of those, who can forget “bear tracks” on the 16th at Augusta? Or the even more memorable day in the sun in '86? And there are way more than that to choose from. Tiger, by comparison, has never won a major coming from behind on the last day. So you don’t spend Sunday waiting and wondering if Tiger’s coming after you; if he isn’t in your final group, tied with or ahead of you, he’s not a factor.
So at this point, while he’s certainly got some imposing statistics, he’s not in all ways as imposing as Jack was.
Federer stood at #1 for 237 straight weeks.
There are quite a few less popular sports where one guy is entirely dominant - with smaller talent pools it’s easier to have a big disparity between the grand master and everyone else. Two great examples already with Moses and Karellin. Also Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor in darts (14 time world champion), Dougie Lampkin (motorcycle trials), Nico Vouilloz(10 time DH mountain bike champion) and many more.
For such a popular sport as golf, though, Tiger’s domination is remarkable. Only individual I can think of who is in the same street would be Floyd Mayweather. At the top level boxing is a huge money sport, and the weight Floyd fights at (or fought at, he is temporarily retired) is pretty deep with talent. Boxing as a whole has a respectable depth of talent worldwide. Floyd is undefeated in his career, has never been knocked down or even hurt that I am aware of. He is so good that, ironically, his greatness is questioned by some. Greatness in boxing comes from contests, from showing great heart in the face of serious adversity. Floyd has never really had to do this.
There was a thread about a year ago where we talked about some of this. A large part of this perception about Tiger not being able to win from behind comes from the fact that most of the time, he doesn’t have to. You can point to Tiger not making a run from behind in some tournaments, and say that those are where Jack would come back to win or contend. Or, you can point to Jack making a comeback and say those are where Tiger had the thing won on Saturday.
Also, having said that, a couple of Tiger’s major victories were wins when he didn’t have his best stuff. The US Open against Rocco is the obvious one, but also the Masters where he beat DiMarco was one where things were basically coming off the rails but he still pulled through.
That’s overstating it a bit. 20/20 hindsight would tell us he isn’t a factor, but I guarantee he’s a factor in the minds of those he shares the leaderboard with on Sunday.
What about the Bob May victory?
I don’t have a very clear memory of the PGA vs. Bob May, but I think that was one of the only cases where Tiger had a lead and put up a strong final round, and somebody stayed with him. I think Tiger went -5 in the final round and May had -6 or -7 to catch him.
How often does the Bob May du jour even shoot that -6 or -7? They don’t. They all collapse, and that’s the amazing thing. If you’re paired with Tiger on Sunday, you’re going to lose. The winner is going to be Tiger. If it’s not going to be Tiger, it’s going to be either someone else that tied the course record earlier in the day or someone that had to shoot out of their mind to catch Tiger later on, but they lose. They all lose. Tiger is not human, babies and knee surgeries notwithstanding.
I’ve got nothing to base this on, but if Bob May beat Tiger, hell if Sergio beat Tiger when he was paired up with him on the final round, we wouldn’t hear as much about the Tiger mystique. After a while, it perpetuated itself. I don’t know if I believe it, but it’s interesting fodder for conversation.
It may not be just because Tiger is so much tougher or better on Sunday. His playing partner has to stand and watch everything he does, for 18 holes. That has to be far more disconcerting than just glancing at the scoreboard is for the earlier pairs.
The point that he generally has his A game for either the entire tournament or none of it is a good one, though. If he’s just off, he can’t compensate as well as Nicklaus or many others could. He is human, after all.
Sorta like Dick Trickle. “Gordon wins the race,Dick Trickle finishes 23rd.”
course not mentioned fer the same reasons.
That and the crowd. Sunday crowds are massive, especially around Tiger.
If we are talking about golf greats, it is not complete without at least a mention of arguably the greatest female golfer of all time.
According to Ben Hogan, Mickey Wright had “the best swing that he had ever seen.”
She won 82 LPGA tournament and 13 majors. She won all of her majors and 80 of her LPGA wins before age 34.
Tiger will be 34 at the end of this year. Their careers are remarkably similar.
Mickey had foot problems and she retired from full time golf at age 34.
For the record, womens golf has never had as much depth as the mens game and a great player could dominate much easier especially in the 50’s and 60’s.