Welcome to FR.
“If this isn’t the definition of choking, I don’t know what is.”
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Well Franklin,
Like you said, you don’t know what choking is. If you want to know what choking is, watch Phil when he’s almost even with Tiger and hits a driver when he should hit a 3 wood or watch when Phil takes a stupid risk and ends up in the water - that’s choking. Greg Norman can do Master’s Degree courses on choking.
Playing up or down to your competition is not choking; it’s simply natural and it’s gentlemanly (womanly if you prefer, Franklin).
There is not a golfer out there today who can match Tiger.
I’ve been watching PGA golf for the last 50 years, and I’ve seen them all play and none can match Tiger Woods. He is one in a million. When he isn’t playing, there is no excitement. It’s like watching the grass grow.
How do you match a guy who can win the US Open with a broken leg. There’s none like him. Earl would be proud.
Akin to the well-documented ‘’Fischer Fear’’ factor among world-class chessplayers when Bobby Fischer was in his (very short) prime.
I take exception to placing Bird in the winner’s position (ie Yankees and Ali) instead of Magic. Magic won more titles during the time they were both competing (5-3) and also won more head to head championships (2-1). He also won more Title MVPs (3-2).
Also, by the reasoning of the article Affirmed was a better race horse than Secretariat because Alydar finished second to Affirmed three times. I don’t think so.
I don’t think you can distinguish between Tiger and Jack. They played in two different eras under vastly different conditions. I think it is sufficient to say they were the most dominant in their generations. At the end it is about wins no matter who the competition is.
I imagine that survey regarding golfers’ scores when playing in a tournament Tiger is in v. those he is not is suspect. Tiger doesn’t play the day to day tournaments, the one that produce the 20 under winning scores. He plays the big tournaments on the difficult courses.