I Don't Know Jack (or Tiger)

I have a few rules I live my life by, and one of them is this: Listen to anything Skip Bayless says about sports on Cold Pizza and take the opposite point of view. Ironically enough, another rule I live by is: If you ever see me watching Cold Pizza, smack me upside the head, take the remote control and change the channel. I’ll thank you for it later, I promise.

Anyway, back to Bayless. Skip insists that Tiger Woods is currently reaping the benefits from a weak, watered down PGA Tour on which he has no true rival. He points out that Jack Nicklaus dueled numerous top-notch pros in his time – Palmer, Watson, Trevino, Player, Ray Floyd, Johnny Miller, etc. Bayless would have you believe that if he was playing against the “weak” PGA fields of today with Nike scientists, superior golf balls and drivers the size of your face, Nicklaus would have won 36 major championships instead of the 18 he did win in his playing days. Bayless also thinks there’s no way in heck Tiger could have won the 12 majors he has playing against Jack’s competition.

To be honest, it’s hard for me to take this sort of debate all that seriously. Quite frankly, comparing athletes across generations is impossible to do. It’s like asking who’s a better center – Shaq or Wilt? Who would win a seven-game series – the ’27 Yankees or the ’98 Yankees? Numbers and statistics only tell so much of the story. Baseball was different in 1927 than it was 71 years later. Basketball was different when Wilt played than it is now and than it will be 30 years from now. And, without question, golf was a different game back when Jack Nicklaus played.

So we’re left comparing what Jack Nicklaus did with a driver actually made out of wood and an object that more closely resembles a rock than the modern golf ball to what Tiger Woods is doing to professional golf today. Is Tiger the best of all-time? Will he be when he wins his 19th major (I said when, not if)? To me, this question is as impossible to answer as, how would Babe Ruth fair against the best pitchers in MLB today?

If you ask Skip Bayless, he’ll say no matter how many major titles Tiger wins, he still won’t be the greatest of all time. He says that’s Jack Nicklaus, end of story. Normally, I’d take the opposite point of view, assume Skip’s wrong and I’m right, and call it a day. Yet I can’t help but think that this time his argument has some merit. He’s right about Tiger not having the rivals Nicklaus did. Don’t believe me? Stack ‘em up. Go ahead and compare Trevino, Watson, Player and others to Mickelson, Els, Singh, Furyk and the rest of Tiger’s so-called rivals. Jack’s line-up is more impressive and, in my eyes, it isn’t even that close.

But there are counter-arguments to be made. First, when Nicklaus was #1 in the world, maybe golfers 2-5 or 2-10 were stronger than they are now; however, golfers 2-100 are certainly stronger as a whole now than they were when Jack played. In other words, golf isn’t nearly as top-heavy in Tiger’s day. He plays against fields that are consistently deeper and stronger than were Jack’s. Second, international players are infinitely better in the modern era than they were when Nicklaus played. For every Player and Seve Ballesteros in Jack’s day, there are ten Els’ and Singhs and Goosens and Harringtons and Sergios and so on.

Then there’s this: Jack Nicklaus won golf tournaments. Tiger Woods dominates golf. The difference between the two is at the same time subtle and Grand Canyon-sized. Tiger dominates golf today like Michael Jordan dominated basketball in the 1990s. When I watched MJ play, even as a youngster, I could always tell. It was like nine of the ten guys on the court were playing basketball, and Jordan was playing something else. A different game at a higher level. A level only he could attain and he knew it. (Interestingly, I felt a similar way the first time I saw LeBron James play basketball back when he was in high school, but he has yet to make that transition at the NBA level.)

Tiger transcends golf. I’m certainly not the first to say it, nor will I be the last. Who is the greatest golfer of all-time? Jack or Tiger? Nicklaus or Woods? Impossible to say, so I won’t even try.

But I will say this … When Tiger Woods wins the Masters again tomorrow, I’ll have watched all 18 holes. If Jack Nicklaus was in the final group, one stroke off the lead, I can’t say for certain that would be the case. Something to think about.

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Davis21wylieMVP

949 days ago

Score 1

Great article.

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False ProphetAll-Star

949 days ago

Score 0

It depends on what your definetion of a best is. Is it who would win head to head? Is it who was more dominant vs. their competeition? or is it who was victorious the most

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KelsdadAll-Star

949 days ago

Score 6

An even bigger change, which is often overlooked, is the advancement in the types of grasses that are in use now, and the way they are maintained. The equipment and ball changes have made average players good and good players great, a sort of leveling of the playing field. But if you ever watch the Golf Channel and see some of these old tournaments from the fifties and sixties, the conditions suck. Guys hit a ball in the middle of the fairway and it looks like todays rough. Greens look like today's fairways. Tiger would have been a major winner in the old days, and Nicklaus and the others would have won their share today, great players would always win. But I give the edge to Nicklaus, as the user so correctly states, playing every week against Arnie and Gary and Tom and Lee meant he had to be 100% every round. Tiger wins some tournaments today with his B game. Nicklaus likely never won a tournament with his.

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