re: Jack Nicklaus vs. Tiger Woods Stats

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I would not call a golfer an "Athlete"

Athlete: A person possessing the natural or acquired traits, such as strength, agility, and endurance, that are necessary for physical exercise or sports, especially those performed in competitive contexts.

I would call a golfer a sportsman.

Sportsman: A man who is active in sports.

Athletes retire and play golf.

Tiger Woods may go down as one of the best Sportsman of all time.

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whatever, sportsman, i dont care. that is a different argument. and change "may" to "will".

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Depends how you look at it. Since I think Federer is more dominant, I think he'll win most of the majors. It baffles me when Sportscenter does polls asking who will win: Tiger or the Field, and like 80% of the people pick Tiger every time, yet he loses a lot more times than he wins.

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at any time in history it is easier to pick the tennis winner. that is fact. 3 majors in one year has been done 11 times in tennis. twice in golf. jack never won more than 2 in a row. never won more than back to back in the same event. it is the nature of the sport. sampras won 6 of 7 wimbledons......no player in any major in golf has won more than 2 of the same major in a row since the 50's.

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You mean the same format that tennis is played?

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as close to tennis as you can get. except in golf, you can't control what your opponent does or doesn't do.

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that is why he is in the discussion. but when another player is beating you more than you are beating him, you cant be the most dominant in sports. sorry.

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When you don't have the most major wins in your own sport, you can't be the most dominant "sportsman" ever. sorry.

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18 > 14

I'm sure there's a few. I know Tiger isn't on that list. At least not for a while.

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thanks for stating a fact.

who is on your list??

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who is on your list??

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In no particular order:

Cycling: Lance
Basketball: MJ, Wilt
Baseball: Babe
Hockey: Gretzsky
Tennis: Federer
Swimming: Phelps
Boxing: Ali, Tyson
Golf: Tiger, Nicklaus

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some of my favorite tiger videos for you guys. enjoy!

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Those videos were pretty cool.
Ellen's just as good as Tiger in that second one!
And did you hear what Tiger's ranking was in that last video?

It pains me to say because Jack was my hero, but I think you put both guys on a level playing field with their primes coinciding and I have to give Tiger a slight edge.

I think his short game is better than Jack's. I think Jack's right there with him everywhere else, including distance and mental toughness.

I think there are significantly more good players today but IMHO not as many great players.

The best and most talented of Tiger's peers seem almost always to shrink in his presence on the big stages.

Trevino and Watson each won four majors where Jack was second. And in most of those 8 instances it was with stellar golf that the best of Tiger's peers seem not to be able to do in majors against Tiger.

I can think of Mickelsen winning that one Masters where Tiger came within a couple of shots right at the end, but otherwise it's the Scott May's, Rich Beam's, Dimarco's and Rocco's who rise up to challenge Tiger in majors. Good pros sure but not the best of Tiger's peers.

That all may sound like a defense for Jack, but I'll reiterate I think it would be very fun to see but I think it would be Tiger by a nose.

this is one of my favorite stories about tiger:

"Everyone's got a story about how Tiger perfected one of our products," says Nared, a former guard on the U. of Maryland basketball team. "We sent him six drivers to try out," says club designer Stites. "He told us, 'I like the heavy one.' I was like, what? There couldn't have been a difference of more than a gram in any of the drivers we sent him. When we reweighed all the clubs, sure enough, he'd picked the one that was maybe a half-gram heavier than the rest. That's like if I gave you two stacks of 150 $1 bills, then tore one bill in half and told you to pick the heavier pile." During ball testing, says Stan Grissinger, Nike Golf's category (golf balls) business director, Tiger was given four balls to try. Before he hit any, he took them one by one and bounced them off the face of his sand wedge four times. "And he'd tell us, 'Here they are, hardest to softest,' " says Grissinger. "And he was always right. We're talking about a compression point or two, something only a machine can detect accurately." When Tiger finally decided to switch to a Nike ball two years ago, during his final tests he narrowed the field to four balls. He then hit a series of 30-yard wedges. "He was spinning the ball around the green like a pool shark doing trick shots," says Kel Devlin, Nike's sports-marketing director. "I remember when he found the ball he liked, he spun a few more, looked at us with a smile and said, 'You see that shite?'" The test, however, was not done. Woods took out his putter, stroked a few and decided—get this—that the sound of the ball coming off the face of his putter wasn't perfect. He said it sounded "broken." The Nike techies brought out an instrument to measure the pitch (to evaluate the purity of the tone), then went back to the lab and tinkered with the ball's finish until it was right. "He makes us work hard because his standards are so high," says Devlin. "But for us, it's fun trying to bring our game up to his level."