I’m trying to find the article from Sports Illustrated that suggests Wayne Gretzky was one of the most dominant athletes in any sport. They compared him to Michael Jordan in basketball and discussed how much better at hockey Gretzky was than Jordan at basketball.
The playing ability of a golfer tends to fall off rather drastically after age 35. I did a quick and dirty study of this last year (on old computer) for the majors on the men’s tour, spanning the last 50 years, and there was a very obvious dropoff past that age. [This is generally better than it is in most other sports, and absolutely slaughters tennis, to name one.]
Look at Lefty since his Master’s victory in the spring of '06 (two months shy of his 36th birthday)-only 3 top tens in 11 majors, 2 missed cuts. The women’s tour I’d imagine would show a similar pattern; Annika, same age as Mickelson, just retired 2 years short of her 40th birthdate, having won no majors in the last two seasons (only 2 top tens). Long story short Tiger is hardly a mortal lock to pass Jack, even if he can avoid the kind of injury he just got over.
Generally that is true, but Vijay Singh and Kenny Perry are definite exceptions to that rule. VJ has had a Hall of Game type career after age 35. All three majors were after age 35 and 29 of his 34 wins after age 35. Heck 22 (including 1 major) of his wins were after age 40.
I think as a general rule, many players go into semi-retirement after age 35. Their kids are older, and they don’t travel as easily. School and extra-curricular activities are taking a lot of time. By the time the players reach 50, the empty nest syndrome is around and there are greener pastures on the Geezer Circuit.
Nicklaus, it should be noted, accomplished an entire career Grand Slam after age 35. 
The most amazing thing about Gretzky is that he dominated an incredibly physical game without being very physical himself. He wasn’t particularly big, or particularly fast. He didn’t have a blistering shot. My theory is that Gretzky could see 10 seconds into the future. It’s the only thing that can explain how he always knew exactly where to go, exactly where to pass the puck, exactly when to shoot, and when to dump it off to Kurri.
and three legs of the Grand Slam after age 40. He won the US Open and PGA at age 40 and the Masters at age 46. A fourth place finish at the British Open is the best he could muster after age 40. But he finished 9 shots behind Watson in that BO. He had a T10 finish at the 82 BO but was only 4 shots behind Watson.
Also interestingly, Nicklaus had 15 consecutive top 6 finishes in the BO, from 1966 to 1980. From 1974 to 79, he had top 3 finishes. That is an incredible feat.
Thus far, the best Tiger has done is 4 top 3 finishes in the Masters. And it could be extended this year.
One factor to take into account is that Tiger is perhaps the best conditioned golfer on tour. He is certainly one of the best conditioned top golfers ever. Nicklaus was a fat guy in the first part of his career, and got really serious about exercise and diet around 40. Nothing like Tiger, though.
Folk speak similarly about Veej’s workout regimen. Guy is supposed to be phenomenally strong and flexible. Tiger’s got nearly 2 decades on him tho…
Less than 13 years is nearly 2 decades?
12/30/75
2/22/63
My mistake.
I was both overestimating Veej’s age, and underestimating Tiger’s.
Tho at 48, I can offer my personal experience as to what I could do when I was 35 - not to mention 40! Funny how I was never quite as impressed by the achievements of older athletes before I had amassed 4 decades myself . . . 
How does he compare with Babe Zaharias?
Tiger hasn’t won any gold medals.
AFAIK, Tiger is not close to World Class in any other sport like Babe Zaharias. But IMO, I think he would have been a World Class athlete in other sports if he had pursued another sport.
I would rank Babe has the greatest women athlete of all time but if we are talking womens golf only, IMO, she would be at best third, behind Mickey Wright and Annika Sorenstam.
Actually, I don’t think there is anyone close to Babe in terms of greatest women athlete.
It’s not a fair comparison, though. Babe Zaharias was from a time when someone could be an amature at multiple sports, and participate at the highest levels. That’s simply not possible any more, for one because amature sports don’t really exist any more (outside of college), and for two because even the most incredible athletes end up having trouble being really good at more than one sport, now that there are so many really good athletes. Take Bo Jackson, or Deion Sanders, etc.
It’s quite likely there are any number of female athletes out there who could amass a sterling record in multiple sports, if the situation were the same as it was when Zaharias was participating. It’s just not possible any more.