On Monday morning while discussing the US Open in the nine o'clock hour , my good friend and co-host Shaun Starr said to me on air: ''I don't like this Tiger bashing this morning''.
I had just finished saying that golf fans and Tiger fans could not say that he is the greatest golfer of all-time.Not when you have played in 41 Majors and not once have you been able to comeback from a deficit after 54 holes to win.After Sunday he is now a BIG 0 for 29!!!
Yes , yes I know he is a perfect 12 for 12 when leading after three rounds.But you have to admit that these stats are very strange.How do you explain, that the best player in the world is not able to win on Sunday, if he doesn't have the lead while eating breakfast.
To help with my argument that Tiger is not the best of all-time , I decided to do some research on Jack Nicklaus.Thank God for the Internet.Here is the breakdown:
Nicklaus won 18 Majors(6 Masters-5 PGA Championship-4 US Open-3 British Open)
Of those 18 wins , 8 times he was trailing after 54 holes.That's right 8 times.That would be 8 times more than Tiger.In fact, in his last win at a Major , the 1986 Masters , Nicklaus was actually trailing by four shots going into Sunday.
And let's not forget that the Golden Bear was also runner-up at a Major an amazing 19 times.In comparison , Tiger has placed second only four times in his 41 Majors.
Tiger Woods may need to win only seven more Majors to break Jack's all-time record.But until he erases a deficit on championship Sunday in one of those , the so-called experts cannot proclaim that he is the greatest golfer of all-time.For now he is not even the Comeback Kid!
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I don't know why we feel like we have to do such comparisons in sports, but we do. Most of the time, it's just an opinion based on some personal preferences, and nobody's 100% right or wrong. Me, I just like Jack, before and after the Tiger phenomena. Jack could have been my dad, my brother, my best friend; a perfect gentleman on and off the course and unquestionably a fantastic golfer. The other dude, I don't know, fantastic golfer for sure, but for the rest of my criteria, he doesn't make the cut.
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