Tiger Woods is to Golf what Pete Sampras was to Tennis

[Chilli Dipper]

If anyone in the history of tennis is comparable to Tiger Woods, it's Rod Laver. Laver swept the Grand Slam as an amateur, then was the preeminent player on the professional circuit during the years before the Open Era. Once professionals were admitted into tennis' majors, Laver promptly swept the Grand Slam again, this time against possibly the most loaded talent pool the sport has ever seen. It's an apples to oranges comparison, but Rod Laver was quite possibly even more dominant than Tiger, and perhaps the most dominant individual athlete ever.

[dragonflyin]

In terms of pure domination of a sport, I think by many measures it's hard to argue against Lance Armstrong. He won the flagship event in his sport seven straight times. Tiger has never won seven majors straight. Lance won the Tour de France against many many more competitors than Tiger. Also the race is several weeks long, as opposed to four days.

This is really a fruitless question. It's often debated because there is really no objective of sports across the board. Much less to say we can't even agree on what constitutes a sport (that's also an interesting question...)...

[firstcut]

Some really good answers here..

Armstrong seems a no brainer... Talk about dominant..
I agree that Jordan has to be up there too...
I hadn't thought of Petty, but that's a good one as well...

No doubt (IMHO) that Rossi is the equivalent of Woods in Motorcycle Racing.. He's been dominant through multiple classes on different bikes/teams
Gotta look at Colin McRae in Rally racing..
Schumacher for F1..

MMmm.. I guess I like Motorsports...

I'm not sure you could find someone in Football or Baseball since the teams are so much bigger that I'm not sure you could say one guy was the "best ever" in either sport...

Keep em rollin'.. Good stuff!

[Grndslmhttr3]

The problem comaring golf to tennis is that tennis stars have a very short career, normally being from about 18-30-ish years old, give or take a few years, whereas in golf, the "younger" guys don't really dominate you so much.

In terms of pure domination of a sport, I think by many measures it's hard to argue against Lance Armstrong. He won the flagship event in his sport seven straight times. Tiger has never won seven majors straight. Lance won the Tour de France against many many more competitors than Tiger. Also the race is several weeks long, as opposed to four days.

Well, in retrospect, only a small few of those "many many more competitors" actually have even the slightest chance of winning a

stage , let alone winning the entire tour.

[Guest]

Greco-Roman wrestling:

Alexander Karelin

European Championships
Gold - Kolbotyn 1988
Gold - Oulu 1989
Gold - Poznań 1990
Gold - Aschaffenburg 1991
Gold - Copenhagen 1992
Gold - Istanbul 1993
Gold - Athens 1994
Gold - Besançon 1995
Gold - Budapest 1996
Gold - Minsk 1998
Gold - Sofia 1999
Gold - Moscow 2000

World Championships
Gold - Martigny 1989
Gold - Ostia 1990
Gold - Varna 1991
Gold - Stockholm 1993
Gold - Tampere 1994
Gold - Prague 1995
Gold - Wroclaw 1997
Gold - Gävle 1998
Gold - Athens 1999

Olympics
Gold - 1988 Seoul
Gold - 1992 Barcelona
Gold - 1996 Atlanta
Silver - 2000 Sydney

[dragonflyin]

The problem comaring golf to tennis is that tennis stars have a very short career, normally being from about 18-30-ish years old, give or take a few years, whereas in golf, the "younger" guys don't really dominate you so much.

By that standard, most of the people entering into the majors are long shots too, or the unseeded players at Wimbledon. How often do you see #100+ ranked players having a great day shooting in the low 60s and then fade away during the weekend? The point was the number of eligible competitors one has to face. Obviously there are strong and weak opponents...

[clearwaterms]

I'm not sure you could find someone in Football or Baseball since the teams are so much bigger that I'm not sure you could say one guy was the "best ever" in either sport...

to be fair, you have to compare the player to his / her own sport, and how much he / she dominated in his/her own time and then compare that level of domination to the level of domination that Tiger holds over the field.

Babe Ruth at one point had more home runs then any other team. One player with more home runs then any single team combined. He threw a no hitter before switching to a fielding hitter. Nolan Ryan with 7 Career No-Hitters. Michael Jordan dominated his sport for years, and helped to change the way the game was played. So did Kareem Abdul Jabaar.

[imtomtomim]

well, in my mind, there's only one athlete that I compare tiger to and that's Michael Jordan. What these two did to revolutionize their respective sports is spectacular. Michael Phelps is on his way to that level as well considering how he brought such massive attention to a sport that lacked in popularity. Being the greatest athlete is one thing but these guys do something extremely different. They bring attention to sports on a much different level. The popularity of golf didn't grow because they like to watch golf, they want to see Tiger. That's something else.

[Grndslmhttr3]

to be fair, you have to compare the player to his / her own sport, and how much he / she dominated in his/her own time and then compare that level of domination to the level of domination that Tiger holds over the field.

I think what the OP was trying to get across is that Tiger Woods, in terms of other sports, is an allusion to one's domination in each of those sports.

Not trying to undermine Babe Ruth's phenomenal career, but I think it was a one-hitter.

[nevets88]

The thing about Woods is that he has basically no major weaknesses, at least up to now (knee). Sampras could not match a top level clay court player and never could get the French. He didn't have an awful ground game, but it wasn't good enough on the terre bateau. Woods, head to head against anyone, most agree, would go his way, and in addition to the majors, has won pretty much every other major big name event, so he is more dominant than PS.

Not to take anything away from Armstrong, but he did not do any of the major European events pre TdF, so he had an advantage over most of the field who did both the Giro and the Velta.

[clearwaterms]

I think what the OP was trying to get across is that Tiger Woods, in terms of other sports, is an allusion to one's domination in each of those sports.

your right I stand corrected

the following taken from wikipedia

In 1918, Ruth pitched in 20 games, posting a 13–7 record with a 2.22 ERA. He was mostly used as an outfielder, and hit a league-leading 11 home runs. His statistics were curtailed slightly when he walked off the team in July following an argument with Boston's manager. Ruth threw a 1–0 shutout in the opener of 1918 World Series, then won Game Four in what would be his final World Series appearance as a pitcher. In three games, Ruth was 3–0 with an 0.87 ERA, allowing 19 hits in 31 innings. Ruth extended his World Series consecutive scoreless inning streak to 29⅔ innings,[12] But since left-handers Hippo Vaughn and Lefty Tyler pitched nearly all the innings for the Cubs, Ruth, who batted left-handed, registered only five at-bats in the Series.

great pitcher, fantastic hitter, simply dominated in his sport at his time, much the same way Tiger does today.

Think about it this way. Last year, in an attempt to mimic the format of the NCAA march madness tournament, ESPN did a contest about the "best" athlete called the Who's Now. The four brackets were each named after a famous sports athlete. Michael Jordan, Billy Jean, Babe Ruth, and Muhammad Ali. Here is the link. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=whosnow FYI, in the end Tiger Woods defeated LeBron James in the end for the victory, but its interesting to note that ESPN considers those four greats in there sports at there time.