Are you kidding? He's 35 years old. An apt comparison to Tiger, in my mind, is Tom Watson. For a period of about seven or eight years, Watson was the greatest golfer on the planet. There was nothing he couldn't do. Then he turned 35 and never won another major.
Woods may yet break the records, but it seems very unlikely. There are more good players on Tour than there were 10 years ago, and Woods is getting older. That's not a recipe for success.
“Are you kidding? He’s 35 years old. An apt comparison to Tiger, in my mind, is Tom Watson.”
No, I’m not kidding. Jack won 6 of his majors at 35+ (over a 24 year period) and Tiger is only 4 behind him now - after 11 years...and consider the conditioning available today. Not hard to imagine at all. And there are no serious competitors to Woods when he is back, this weekend notwithstanding. A couple of good rounds doesn’t make you Woods or Nicklaus, Arnold or Watson. That’s some pretty rarefied air.
Arnie only won 7 over an 8 year period. As for Watson, he won 7 total, also over an eight year period. How you could compare Watson and Woods is bewildering. Watson LIFETIME had about half the tourny wins Woods had after 11 years.
I think the reason people scoff at comparing Woods to Jack is that Jack Nicklaus is Golf personified, not his race, although some of the posts about Woods, even here, show that is somewhat a factor.
If you were comparing him to Walter Hagen, you might have an easier time, even though a lot of people really underestimate Hagen (maybe to long ago?) for some reason, he was a truly great golfer with some bad (some rumored even nasty) habits off field. Comparing him to Jack or Arnold is real tough to do, but they themselves have said it, that he is the most complete GOLFER they have ever seen. Jack believes Tiger will break his record. He is on record as saying he hopes he’s there to shake his hand when it happens.
Hard to top that for being a gentleman.