Thursday, June 14, 2001
Tiger's tally
By DAN O'NEILL
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
In the final round of the Memorial Tournament, they walked the
17th fairway together at Muirfield Village, walked it miles apart.
Feeling like a pylon, covered in 16 holes of dust, swallowing
his professional pride, one of the best players in the world moved
up alongside his opposite and confessed to mortality.
“I'm sorry I didn't give you a better game,” Paul Azinger
said to Tiger Woods. “I didn't put up much of a fight.”
As the USGA prepares to conduct the 101st U.S. Open at Southern
Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Okla., the fight never has been more
lopsided. No one can lay a glove on Tiger Woods.
The long-hitting, fist-pumping, record-smashing Woods has made
the most unpredictable game on Earth as obvious as the sunrise.
In his last 40 starts, he has been an unfathomable 50-50 shot
to win, doing so 20 times.
With successive victories in the U.S. Open, British Open, PGA
Championship and Masters, Woods has won golf's last four major
championships under a combined umbrella of 65 under par. The next
best player in that sequence, Ernie Els at 20 under, is 45 strokes
behind.
But Woods' most remarkable achievement is the context in which
he has put himself and his game. He is wearing out laptop thesauruses
across the land. He is causing analysts to hyperventilate. He
is forcing people to conclude what was formerly unthinkable —
that a golfer might be the “greatest athlete” in sports.
“I would say he's the most dominant athlete in the history
of sports,” Azinger said. “It's incredible. I don't
know if the general public appreciates it. They probably do, but
if they don't, they should.”
X . . .X . . . X
Certainly, in golfing terms, Woods is treading on virgin territory.
By winning five of the last six major championships, Woods is
making Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 career major championships
look like nothing more than a speed bump. Nicklaus has no qualms.
He's ready to pass the baton. In fact, he's willing to hand over
the keys to the kingdom, lock, stock and barrel.
“I don't know about history,” Nicklaus said, “but
certainly, since I've been playing the sport, I've never found
anybody that has dominated anything more. If you are comparing
him with me, I come out a very distant second. I don't think anyone
has dominated an individual sport anywhere near the level that
he has dominated.”
Athletics has had many other singularly dominant performances
that might be compared with those of Woods. In 1988, Steffi Graf
captured an unprecedented “Golden Grand Slam” in women's
tennis by winning Wimbledon, the Australian, French and U.S. opens,
and Olympic gold. From 1977 to 1987, hurdler Edwin Moses won 122
races and two Olympic golds. During the '72 Olympics, Mark Spitz
won seven swimming golds, and in the 1980 Games, Eric Heiden won
all five speed skating events.
But in golf, the only set of titles that compares occurred 71
years ago — Bobby Jones' “Impregnable Quadrilateral”
of 1930. Jones won the U.S. and British opens and amateurs at
a time when those events were the Big Four of golf.
Arguably, he was as dominant and dynamic in his time as Woods
is in his. Jones retired after accomplishing his unprecedented
sweep at age 28. Over an eight-year period, he had won 13 of the
21 national championships in which he had played. From 1920 to
1930, he played in 15 U.S. and British opens and won seven.
Still, Byron Nelson, whose 11 consecutive PGA Tour victories and
18 victories overall in 1945 remain unchallenged, believes Woods
is in a league of his own.
“I can't imagine anyone doing any better,” said Nelson,
89. “I think what Tiger has done deserves mention with those
other great feats in sports. I'm not saying it ought to be any
better than those, but whenever you mention those others, you
ought to name Tiger as well. He certainly deserves to be there.
“
X . . . X . . . X
Where Woods' bounty of majors ranks in sports history is difficult
to assess. Last year, ESPN produced a “SportsCentury”
retrospective that included picking the 50 greatest athletes.
Four golfers were listed, including Nicklaus (No. 9), Arnold Palmer
(29), Ben Hogan (38) and Jones (44). The selection panel voted
in 1999, before Woods became as prominent.
“Longevity was a big thing with the panel,” said Mike
Antinoro, coordinating producer of the series. “And Tiger,
obviously, doesn't have the longevity. But my personal opinion
is Tiger would be in the top 50 somewhere. If it is a list of
'sports feats' instead of 'athletes,' I'd put Tiger in the top
10.”
And if it is a list of sports feats, Mark McGwire's season of
1998 certainly would rank near the top. The Cardinals first baseman
broke the single-season home run standard, arguably the most romantic
record in sports. Roger Maris' mark of 61 homers had stood for
almost 37 years before McGwire hit 70 and shattered it by nine.
Big Mac, who also has been known to slug around the little seamless
ball, is appreciative of what Woods has accomplished but reluctant
to draw parallels between their two worlds.
“You can't compare an individual sport to a team sport,”
McGwire said. “A golfer plays only a golf course. He doesn't
have a pitcher to face. . . . I don't know of a golfer who plays
the players. The golf course is the one you beat, not the golfers.”
McGwire added, with a devilish smile: “If the ball was coming
at him at 90 miles an hour, I don't think he would be very good
at it.”
Baseball's most legendary figure, Babe Ruth, had a stretch in
1920 to compare with Woods. In his first year with the New York
Yankees, Ruth batted .376 and swatted 54 homers, which nearly
doubled his major-league record of 29 the year before. That 54
total was four more than the next-highest team total in the league.
It surpassed the next-best individual mark by 35.
But the mark most often brought into the Woods discussion is Joe
DiMaggio's hitting streak of 56 games in 1941. The “Impossible
Streak” lasted from May 15 to July 16, during which he batted
.407. DiMaggio's run was 12 games longer than the previous standard
of 44 games, set by “Wee” Willie Keeler in 1897, and
15 games longer than George Sisler's modern record of 41 games
in 1922.
Does 56 games divided by four majors come out even? Theoretically,
DiMaggio could have gone one for four in 56 games and batted .250,
reaching the same mark. While marvelous in its consistency, the
hitting streak had no absolute impact on winning or losing.
“It's like comparing apples to peanuts,” golfer David
Duval said. “I don't know what you would compare (Woods'
streak) to, because I'm not sure there's something you could compare
it with.”
Nelson got to know DiMaggio, when the two played in the old Bing
Crosby pro-ams at Pebble Beach. Nelson indicated that DiMaggio,
who died in 1999, would have the utmost respect for what Woods
is doing.
“It's amazing what a certain individual in sports can do,”
Nelson said. “I had a couple of discussions with DiMaggio
about it. He congratulated me on what I did and I congratulated
him on what he did. He said, 'Well, I think what you did was harder
than what I did.' And I said, 'I think what you did was harder
than what I did.' “
X . . . X . . . X
Some of the other “greatest” athletes Woods is compared
with include Wilt Chamberlain, Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan.
Chamberlain's remarkable season of 1961-62, which included a league-record
100-point game, was among the most dominant performances in history.
“Wilt The Stilt” finished the season with a 50.4-point
scoring average and won the NBA scoring title by a stunning average
margin of 18.8 points. Chamberlain scored 50 or more points in
45 games that season. No other NBA player has that many 50-point
games for a career.
But Woods has his own remarkable scoring achievements. In winning
all four majors in succession, he set the scoring record in each.
At last year's U.S. Open, he finished 12-under par while the next
best score was 3 over. He tied or broke 11 Open scoring records
with the performance at Pebble Beach, including a 138-year-old
mark for the largest margin of victory in any major championship,
a mark set by the legendary Old Tom Morris at the British Open.
After the Pebble Beach dominance, distant runner-up Els commented:
“If you put Old Tom Morris with Tiger Woods, he'd probably
beat him by 80 shots right now.”
Ali is much more than a three-time heavyweight boxing champion.
He is a larger-than-life personality, an international figure
whose impact has been felt on social, political and cultural levels.
The multi-ethnic Woods crosses the same boundaries. Ali always
has been quick to claim the title of “The Greatest,”
and he gets no argument from Woods.
“I think one of the biggest impacts I've seen and felt the
ramifications of it, is what Muhammad Ali was able to do,”
Woods said. “Even though he lost a few times throughout his
career, his impact on society far outweighed what he was able
to accomplish inside the ring. That's why he has to be considered
one of the greatest of all time. Just ask him.”
But because they are considered relative contemporaries, Jordan
is the figure with whom Woods most often and, from a marketing
sense, most appropriately is compared. Jordan, rumored to be contemplating
a comeback, was a five-time most valuable player in the NBA. Not
including a retirement that deprived him of all of one season
and most of another, he won six consecutive NBA titles. And, excluding
the retirement, he won 10 consecutive NBA scoring titles.
More pertinent, Jordan has been found in fast food chains, movie
theaters, shoe stores, fragrance departments and underwear commercials.
Ahead of Woods, Jordan became a significant piece of pop culture.
“Tiger and Michael Jordan are the two greatest combinations
of hype and performance that we've ever seen in American sports,”
said Chuck Korr, a University of Missouri-St. Louis sports historian.
“The personality rarely fits the talent the way it does for
those two.”
Jordan, however, suggested Woods carries a “bigger burden”
because of the responsibilities and expectations that surround
him. In the 27 golf events CBS televised from the start of 1999
through the 2000 PGA Championship, tournaments without Woods or
ones in which he failed to contend drew a 2.9 rating. For tournaments
in which he did contend — a top-five finish or better —
the network had a 4.2 rating. That's a difference of 1.5 million
homes.
“I don't believe he is a god,” Jordan said, “but
I do believe he was sent by one.”
His place in history
For his own part, Woods is uncomfortable being compared with athletes
in other sports. After winning the Memorial by 7 strokes, he was
asked about Azinger's “dominant athlete” comment. “I
think if someone is going to be considered that, I think they
would be a little bigger than me,” said Woods, listed as
6 feet 2 and 180 pounds. “I'm 6 foot, and I chase a little
white ball around for a living.”
But as he attempts to win for the sixth time in seven starts,
to become the first repeat winner of the U.S. Open in more than
a decade, he is thankful people are giving golf such attention.
“There are some amazing things that have transpired in our
sport,” Woods said. “A lot of it goes unsaid because
of a lack of familiarity people have with golf. Other sports have
a lot more prestige and a lot more coverage. I think it's pretty
neat to have our sport considered on that level.”
Ultimately, Woods' place in history has only been reserved. What
he does in the years ahead will determine his seat assignment.
Still, one thing is certain: He is taking golf to places it has
never been before.
(For news and information about St. Louis, visit http://www.stltoday.com.
Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.)
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