Well, I said it Friday. They should have just given him the Trophy then and spared us all the truly exciting and historicalgolf. he was going to win anyway.
I am amazed that at the hardest golf Open on the planet Tiger can basically beat the field while playing on an unquestionably not 100% recovered knee. Can he really be better than everyone else out there? I guess so.
And if anyone doesn't believe that he going to win this, then I don't know what to tell you. I knew he was going to at least birdie 18 yesterday. Tiger knew it. My wife who hates golf but loves all things Tiger(he's cute!) knew it. Heck, Rocco Mediate admitted in front of a camera he knew Tiger was going to birdie!
And I know the same thing today!
BigTicket, I have tons of respect for you and you contribute so much to the quality of this thread. But I could not disagree with you more on the Tiger/Jack, Moss/Rice analogy. Moss is great but Rice is the best ever and is still miles ahead on Moss. Last season just doesn't elevate him that high. But Jack is not better than Tiger.
At the same age, when both turned 32, Tiger had won 4 more professionals majors than Jack(13-9), 1 more amateur major than Jack(3-2), and more tournaments(61-38). Also Jack was able to accomplish, ever, these stunning Tiger accomplishments:
Win four consecutive major championships (2000 U.S. Open - 2001 Masters).
Win three majors in the same year (2000).
Win the U.S. Open by 15 strokes. (Nicklaus's largest margin of victory in golf's most grueling test was four shots.)
Win back-to-back British Opens (2005-2006) and PGA Championships (2006-2007).
Never cough up a 54-hole lead at a major.
Win eight tournaments in a season. (Woods has done it three times.)
Win at least five tournaments in five consecutive seasons. (Nicklaus topped out at three.)
Win seven consecutive starts.
Win tournaments in Dubai, Japan, Thailand and Germany.
Make 142 consecutive cuts. (Jack was spent after 105.)
Finish first on the money list four consecutive years.
Win three consecutive U.S. Amateurs (on top of three consecutive U.S. Juniors).
I am in no way trying to diminish the career or ability of Jack Nicklaus who I grew up watching battle Tom Watson all the time in the 70's. I love Jack. But he is no Tiger.
Some say Jack played against better competition. I say he played against competition that he was better than but not by as wide a margin as Tiger is better than the field he plays against every week. Was the field in Jack's days better than the field in Tiger's days? That's debatable. If we put Els, Garcia, Michelson, Goosen and others as they are now back in the 1970's would they be as good as Player, Watson, Crenshaw and the rest? They very well may have been as good or even better than those guys.
But we will never know and we can't compare stats because of the difference in technology and the fact that Tiger is so much better than today's field of players that their stats are emasculated by Tiger. Take Tiger's wins and adjust them down to Jack's levels at a similar age and I think you would see that Tiger would be playing against a 5 time major winner, a 3-4 time major winner and a bunch of guys with a whole lot more tourney wins as well. The fields would then appear to be much the same on a wins stat line.