If you only read the title of this article you might think this is another comparison on who is the best golfer of all time. No, considering the stall that Tiger has had in his current play it really ends the debate for now. Over the course of his career Jack is by far the better player. More major victories, 18 versus 14, but what really puts Jack over the top for me is the number of second-place finishes in majors, 19 versus six. And if you include top-ten finishes in majors Jack really starts to pull away.
In the bar last week I made the hypothesis that 2000 for Tiger was better than any single year that Jack had. When I started looking into it I was definitely right. Jack’s best year was 1972 when he won the Masters, the U.S. Open, finished second at the Open Championship, and tied for 13th at the PGA. Jack had an excellent 1980 when he won the U.S. Open and the PGA, but 1972 was better. To be frank when I looked into it Jack had an incredible run in the 1970s. He was in the hunt in almost ever major played during those years, but not only in the hunt but he had an enormous amount of top tens. Still 1972 was a great year but it was no match for Tiger’s 2000.
One of the best things about the game of golf is the vast history. Golf has had transcendent athletes almost constantly over the last 150 years, and as I attempted to categorize them all I found myself writing, and writing, and writing. (I tried to do this with baseball, and all I got down was “Yankees, then… more Yankees, and a little more Yankees. And then the Red Sox won. And then the Yankees…”) In classifying the history of golf, these last 50 years are where it got tough, as I had to figure out what do do with Jack Nickluas. Jack had legitimate rivals in Arnold Palmer and Tom Watson at completely different ends of his own expansive career. I ultimately decided to combine Nicklaus and Watson, and give Palmer his own era. I’m sure they won’t mind.
Hello again golf fans and thanks for joining me for another hittin’ the links. After all the excitement caused by McIlroy vs. Westwood, the final of the Accenture Match Play seemed somewhat anti-climactic. Congratulations has to go out to Hunter Mahan though, maybe now everyone will begin to forget that chip in the Ryder Cup two years ago.
At the beginning of the season last year, I was trying (just as I am now) to write a column documenting the various rookies on the PGA Tour. And while there were a few nice stories, there simply just wasn’t enough to fill out a whole article. Fast forward to the PGA Championship at Atlanta Athletic Club, when Tour rookie Keegan Bradley was in the mix, and I began lamenting not writing the column. Bradley would to be the main fixture of the article, because while he didn’t start with the highest of expectations, I knew more about him than most people, since we went to the same high school. (For the record, the other names I had written down were Jamie Lovemark, Justin Hicks, Kevin Chappell, Nate Smith, and Michael Thompson).
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