Tiger’s got ’em seeing green
It’s Masters week. Time to watch Tiger attempt to take another
bite out of Jack Nicklaus’ ever-dwindling list of records. A win
this week and the 32-year-old native Californian will have five
green jackets in his closet
– just one shy of Jack’s all-time record.
Based on the way Tiger’s been playing, a win this week wouldn’t
surprise anyone but it sure would shock everyone to know that Tiger
isn’t even close to Nicklaus, in terms of overall records at the
Masters.
Tiger’s got ’em seeing green
It’s Masters week. Time to watch Tiger attempt to take another bite out of Jack Nicklaus’ ever-dwindling list of records. A win this week and the 32-year-old native Californian will have five green jackets in his closet – just one shy of Jack’s all-time record.
Based on the way Tiger’s been playing, a win this week wouldn’t surprise anyone but it sure would shock everyone to know that Tiger isn’t even close to Nicklaus, in terms of overall records at the Masters.
In researching this column, I learned of some mind-blowing numbers that the Golden Bear was able to etch into the Georgia pine that may never be equaled. Yes, Woods has the talent to be able to break them all – barring injury – but, man, was the bar ever set high.
How’s this one for starters: Tiger Woods is 32. Jack Nicklaus made 37 cuts in the Masters tournament alone. That would mean Tiger Woods would need to go until 2033 without missing a cut just to tie.
Jack Nicklaus also had the most birdies in tournament history with 506. To put that into perspective that would be like birding every hole you played at Augusta for slightly more than 7 straight years, the average length of most PGA Tour careers.
Jack also has the most career eagles in the tournament’s history and holds the all-time lowest scoring average of 71.98 for all players with more than 100 rounds played. Tiger has played 50 rounds with a scoring average of 71.00. Yes, that’s better than Jack by a stroke right now – but Jack played in this tournament most every year until he was 65 years old!
Heck, in 1998, at the ripe old age of 58, the man who would be forced to have hip-replacement surgery several months later, finished SIXTH in the tournament – another record for the highest finish for anyone over the age of 50. The scary thing is had a few more putts gone down on the back 9, we might have been talking about seven green jackets for Nicklaus. And who finished eighth that same year? Tiger Woods, the 22-year-old defending champion! So I guess we can officially say that Jack, some 20 years past his prime, was able to beat Tiger in his prime.
Nicklaus won the Masters in 1963, ’65, ’66, ’72, ’75 and ’86. In other words, Jack beat fields that included the following people to win this tournament: Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Tony Lema, Julius Boros, Billy Casper, Gene Littler, Jimmy Demaret, Gene Sarazen, Byron Nelson, Cary Middlecoff, Ken Venturi, Al Geiberger, Art Wall, Don January, Ray Floyd, Roberto De Vincenzo, Bruce Crampton, Tom Weiskopf, Dave Stockton, George Archer, Ben Crenshaw, Lanny Wadkins, Tony Jacklin, Lee Trevino, Hale Irwin, Johnny Miller, Tom Kite, Craig Stadler, Greg Norman, Seve Ballesteros, Nick Price, Tom Watson, Payne Stewart, Curtis Strange, Fuzzy Zoeller, Fred Couples, Bruce Lietzke, Hubert Green, Mark O’Meara – to name a few!
Today, Tiger beats the entire field too. I’m sorry but names like Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh, Ernie Els, Jim Furyk, Colin Montgomerie, Michael Campbell, Brad Faxon, Tom Lehman, Justin Leonard, David Toms, Retief Goosen, Hal Sutton, K.J. Choi, Ian Woosnam, as good as those players are, but don’t hold a candle to the players Jack beat during his career. Even Tiger would admit that.
One thing that Tiger does have in his favor as he closes in on Nicklaus is the way the course itself is set up today. A few years back bunkers, rough and length were added to Augusta National to toughen it up, and recent scoring has reflected that. Some say the changes were made in order to tame Tiger, but in reality, all it really did was make his history-making quest a lot easier. Reason: Tiger is so much better than everyone else on today’s PGA Tour that beefing up course only eliminates more players from the tournament before the first tee shot is hit. If the guys who set up the course down there at Augusta really wanted to slow down Tiger, all they needed to do was make the course play easier, because that would bring more players into the mix. And it’s a lot harder to win a birdie-fest shootout than a 72-hole grind.
For these reasons, my money is riding on Tiger this week. And the only man with the skills to stop him or at least give him a run for his money is retired from the game.
