Tiger Woods still needs true challenger

Any chance of a Tiger- Ochoa match in the future? I'd love to see that..

Could it be that the guys you've referenced would be in the same pack with the rest of the players behind Tiger?

i.e. The way the guys play tennis today, it would be unfair to compare the greats of yesteryear to Federer or Nadal.

Or Jordan to the basketball greats of yesteryear.

Phil is easily as good as Watson and will finish with more wins

39-31 watson now Mickelson will win atleast 10-20 more

Your arguments don't hold water. Look at career wins by Singh and Mickelson. Only a moron would say that the field was deeper in the days of Palmer and Nicklaus. Of course there were great players before Woods came along. But the overall depth of field has made it more difficult to win for anyone. The fact that Woods does go out and beat 100 or so golfers as consistently as he does is amazing.

That's a tough one...I think the breadth of talent IS deeper now but the top 10 or so is weaker. I surely can't imagine a Phil or Ernie going head to head with Woods like Watson at Turnberry in '77 and winning.

End result...a bit easier on Woods than Jack.

I strongly suspect that if the "greats of yesteryear" played with Tiger, they would be fighting for 2nd place.

Strange comments. Golf, I thought, was a game played against oneself and the course. If I was not mistaken in this belief, the Tiger, is peerless. Golf is niether boxing nor ping-pong. It is a game played by dozens of isolated individuals and includes how well each can exclude the others mentally from affecting their personal performance. Get off it! Mr Sherman the Tiger is simply the best there ever was.

A great column, Ed.

What makes you think tougher competition wouldn't make
Tiger even better?

Good article. One thing you did not mention is that most golf courses for major tournaments have been redesigned since Palmer's days and are tougher to play on for everybody. Which makes the beat down that Woods is given everyone, and I mean everyone, even more impressive.

I don't think the rest of the players are motivated enough to challenge Tiger. They can make a great living just by finishing in the top 125 every year...everything else is gravy, and plenty of it.
Only Woods is driven to compete with the greats of the game and stake his claim to being the best that ever teed it up.
I think Arnie and Jack know by now that they are watching someone special, and that at their best they were not as good as him.

I think that you are overlooking one fundamental aspect of tournament golf. Players while competing against one another for whom take home the prize they are really playing against the golf course. If your point was the talent is not out there then I think all you do is deminish the ability of the rest of the PGA to play golf. Remove Tiger from the field then you might have the parity that you think was so common when the greats of the 60s, 70s & 80s played. What is impressive about Mr. Woods is the number of touraments he does play and goes on to win.

Tiger Woods has no equal-only the media is wishing for a rival. When the dust settles, he will be the greatest golf player the sport has seen in its history up to this point in time (obviously in the future, this can change). When living legends such as the King and the Golden Bear publicly comment about how great Tiger is over and over again, that is proof enough.

I'm a big fan of the golf's elders, especially Jac Nicklaus, and feel lucky to have been able to watch them play over my life, but none of them have Tiger's game. Tiger would dominate just as he is if it were possible to put their game with todays equipment on today's courses. JMHO.

Nice comment and accolades about Tiger Woods and it’s too bad that you were not able to identify any worthy opponent to make the contests more exciting. However, after searching for somebody to step up to the tee and , which many of you ‘scribes have done for years, you left out one vital comment:

Just maybe we are witnessing History and there has never been a better golfer than we are watching today – Tiger Woods just may have no equal! Enjoy the show, he entertains us and I just wish he would play in more events!

I do not understand what you are all about. Do you think those guys playing with Tiger are stupid? They work hard enough except that Tiger is that good. You are one of those people who just refuse to accept Tiger's dominance for your own reasons (which i don't care to know). So can we surmise that you are a lousy reporter/journalist because you are not writing for the NYT's editorial? C'mon!!.

Try something better.

Tiger can only go against who's out there. He consistently beats whoever makes up the field- it's not his fault if they're not Nicklaus, Snead, and Nelson. His 13 major wins should be proof that he is by far the best today and of all time.

This author's an idiot as shown in this logic-less drivel of an article. When the game of golf has become global, that much more competitive, he's dissing Woods because he hasn't played against the champions of golf's past? Did it ever dawn on the guy that perhaps Els, Singh, Garcia, and Mickelson would be on par with the Nicklaus and Palmers, had it NOT been for a certain player named Tiger?

If you can't appreciate the magnitude of what this guy is doing, maybe covering the local tiddlywinks championship at your local rec center is more your speed.

How tough could the competition have been win Nelson won 11 in a row and 18 in one year? If Tiger played a full schedule, he'd probably win 15 this year.