With Tiger Woods having passed 50 victories, and having also won 11 majors before his 31st birthday, it seems that the great Jack Nicklaus isn’t too happy that his record of 18 majors is under some serious pressure. He’s now saying that he should have won more, and suggesting that he would have if he’d only taken it all a little more seriously.
That’s right, Tiger wins more because family isn’t his priority. :rolleyes:
I don’t really care about golf, nor am i really a Tiger Woods fan. Nicklaus’s comments just struck me as rather sour grapes; has this guy not had enough attention and adulation in his life, without trying to detract from the performance of the guy most likely to break his records? Is he worried that he’ll be forgotten or something? I didn’t realize that being a multi-millionaire sports legend had such insecurity as a side-effect.
I don’t really get that sense from reading the entire article. That section you snipped is part of a longer quote where he talks about how he didn’t really worry about even playing majors for several years early in his career because that wasn’t his focus. And it is true, Tiger doesn’t have a family to take care of so he has more time to focus on golf. How is it sour grapes to note that are differences in how their early careers differ?
He also states that he wants to shake Tiger’s hand and congratulate him if he does break that record.
I’m not saying that this is an especially big deal; it just seemed to me that Nicklaus was needlessly downplaying Woods’ accomplishments by focusing on his own career trajectory. He never said we wasn’t playing majors, he said we wasn’t winning them, and to tell you the truth, i’m not sure i buy the argument that he didn’t consider them to be that important. If Nicklaus was known for something (apart from golfing skill) throughout his career, it was an absolutely fierce competitive streak.
And while noting differences in their early careers is not, in and of itself, a bad thing, it also seems to me that his talk about focusing on his family was implicilty judgmental. Also, just because Tiger doesn’t have kids doesn’t mean he lacks a family. He has a girlfriend (wife?), and he was also very close to his father before his father’s death.
Finally, the bit about shaking Woods’ hand is followed by an announcement that he’s not going to “follow him around the last major to make sure that I’m there.” Fair enough; he can do what he likes. But, taken alongside all his other comments, his whole attitude strikes me as a bit mean-spirited.
It’s no small feat to play in fifty tournaments, much less win them. I think there’s just something in Woods, besides skill, that wasn’t in Nicklaus, and that makes any comparison of the early part of their careers irrelevant.