Tiger Woods victory in the US Open will stand among the more legendary because of the setting and his worthy opponent, Rocco Mediate. Mediate had come up light in his 42 previous attempts at winning a major and was ranked 158th in the world. My issue, is now that Tiger has 14 major titles, and is just 4 short of the previously unthinkable total of 18 that Jack Nicklaus piled up is how adamant each side can be. Here's my two cents as to the greatest player ever debate. It's undecided but the conversation involves only these two. I'm the biggest Jack fan ever, but during his reign there were maybe a dozen or so players capable of beating him in either Open, the Masters or PGA. Yes, they were Hall of Famers like Arnie, Casper or Gary Player. The current fields are so cutthroat that a guy who barely qualified is so freaking talented he can win!
I don't like taking sides in this fight because the case for each is staggering but those who sell short today's field don't get it. Jack faced a small group of masterful players when it was rare to come out of nowhere to win a major. In recent memory, aside from Phil Mickelson and Woods, no names like Rich Beem, Shaun Micheel, Zach Johnson, Trevor Immelman, Ben Curtis, Todd Hamilton, Angel Cabrera, and Michael Campbell have won majors, all since 2002.
Take a similar period for Nicklaus as he became the guy to beat and moved into his early 30's. The only real no-name winners of a major would be Orville Moody, 68 Masters Champ Bob Goalby who did have 11 PGA Tour victories, and Robert DiVicenzo. Actually DiVicenzo won 2 majors, 6 PGA Tour Events & was elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame. First time winners were rare in the Nicklaus dominated era while today it's commonplace.
Already this year on tour, there have been 6 first time tournament champions, Anthony Kim, Andres Romero, Johnson Wagner, Ryuji Imada, Brian Gay and Greg Craft. This was unthinkable back in the 60's & 70's.
The bottom line is let's wait for Tiger to get that 19th major and never sell the brilliance of either guy short.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment