in Blog, Profiles in the Gamme by Jeff Waters

IS TIGER WOODS THE GREATEST TO HAVE EVER PLAYED THE GAME OF GOLF?

 

Tiger at the Masters
Tiger at the Masters

Tiger Woods will play in the 2015 Masters Tournament after missing last year’s event with back issues. His decision to play the first major of the year is enriched by the fact that Woods has not played in a PGA Tour event since February when he withdrew from the Farmers Insurance Open in San Diego.

The excitement generated by Wood’s addition to the 79th Masters comes after a series of miscues while trying to return to the form that made him the number one ranked player in the world. Injuries, personal problems and other issues have dropped Tiger out of the World’s top 100 for the first time since 1979 when he won his first Masters by a record score. Once a weekend machine, he holds the record for consecutive cuts made at 142, Tiger has struggled of late having played the weekend just once since last year.

The anticipation of how Tiger will fair after such a long layoff from competitive golf against the best players in the world on the fable fairways and greens of the Augusta National is a question everyone connected to the game of golf has been asking leading up to this week.

How that drama plays out remains to be seen. But my question this week is this: Has Tiger Woods done enough, in his career, to be called the best player who ever played?

Here is my take on that question.

Any investigation into greatest in the business of golf has to start with major championships. You can blame Bobby Jones for that. In Golf’s infancy, which was the early part of the twentieth century, it was no contest. Bobby Jones was the greatest who ever lived. 4 US Opens, 3 Open Championships, 5 US Amateurs and 1 British Amateur. Bobby Jones won thirteen major tournaments during this span including all four of the “major championships” in 1930. The “Grand Slam” it was called, setting a standard for golf posterity, earning him a ticker tape parade down Wall Street in New York City and golf immortality.

Mr. Jones promptly retired from competitive golf, retired to his law profession and set about building his own country club that would become the Augusta National home to the Masters. In time, the Masters and the PGA Championship would replace the US and British Amateurs as majors in golf jargon while professional golf supplemented amateur golf as the dominion of the best players in the world.

If major championships are the sole standard for rating players, and they are, then Jack Nicklaus with 18 professional majors is the clear winner. Tiger Woods is second with 14, Bobby Jones next with 13; Ben Hogan and Gary Player are tied for fourth with 9 each, Tom Watson is sixth with 8 and four players are tied with 7: Arnold Palmer, Gene Sarzen, Sam Snead and Harry Vardon, all legends in the game of golf.

But here is my take: If you just use the professional championship, i.e., The US Open, Open Championship, PGA Championship and the Masters, then Bobby Jones only won seven. You have to discount his US and British Amateurs, which, in my mind, in blatantly unfair seeing as he was the one who set the original standard in 1930 with the Grand Slam.

So here’s the deal, if you use just the professional majors as the standard of greatness then Jack is the best to have ever played with Tiger second. And until Tiger beats Jack’s record of eighteen then Jack’s the best. No question. But, and here’s the rub, if we count Bobby Jones’s six amateur championships towards his total as history does, then you have to count Jack’s 2 US Amateurs as well. That gives him twenty.

But if you count Jack’s 2 US Amateurs then you also have to count Tiger’s 6 Amateurs. People forget that Tiger won 3 US Junior Amateurs and 3 US Amateurs in a row. This gives him a total of 20 golfing majors, presenting a statistical tie with Jack Nicklaus as the best to have ever played and don’t  think for a moment that Tiger doesn’t know this.

There is no doubt that Tiger must regain the brilliance that once made him the number one player in the world if golf fans are to renew the conversation about who is the best player in history. There is also no doubt that, for the present moment, it’s between him and Jack Nicklaus. They are head and shoulders above everyone else. What’s exciting is that conversation could start this week at Augusta.

At the Masters, I’m Jeff Waters

With over a half-century of engagement in the sport of Golf, Jeff Waters has become one of the most accomplished, experienced, and qualified Golf Professionals in the history of the PGA of America. He is a fully certified and trained Master Professional joining an exceedingly small and elite group of Professionals in the World to have achieved this prestigious title. Jeff holds University Degrees in Political Science, Teaching Minors in Economics and Finance, attended graduate school in Commercial Recreation, taught undergraduate classes at the University of Utah, and earned a master’s in business administration. With more than fifty years of experience and success in the business of Golf, Jeff spent ten years playing and competing in the game at all levels ten years laboring as an Assistant Golf Professional, acquiring the job-related skills, responsibilities, and training required for a career in golf, ten years fulfillment as a PGA Head Professional overseeing all aspects of the total golf course operation, three years’ service as Director of Player Development for Salt Lake County Parks and Recreation, administering and managing multiple golf course programs and activities, thirty-three years as a Golf Coach and Instructor at The Rocky Mountain Golf Academy, The University of Utah’s College of Health and the Granite Peaks Community College, teaching and tutoring the game. Additionally, Jeff has spent the last twenty-seven years as the Owner, President, and CEO of Rocky Mountain Golf Enterprises (RMG), a Utah-registered and licensed business offering golf-related services throughout the Western United States utilizing golf as the marketing tool. Finally, Jeff has performed on the national media stage for the past thirty-eight years as an Announcer, Author, Producer, and Talk Radio Host, communicating and sharing the joy, art, and skill that is the Game, Sport, and Challenge of Golf. Jeff, a well-known golf journalist, has been active in print media from an early age. His articles, commentary, and features regularly appear nationwide. He has authored two golf instruction books: “The Ten Commandments of Golf, Proven Principles That Make Your Golf Game Better,” and “The Short Game, the Transition from the Golf Course to the Putting Green.” Both are available as e-book downloads and on Amazon. Jeff penned his first short story while still in his teens and has since published 100’s of commentaries, essays, and instruction pieces in magazines, blogs, internet forums, and other platforms, including Golf Today, Utah Golf Magazine, Utah Golf News, Rocky Mountain Golfer, Fairways Magazine, Jackson Hole Golf News, Talking Golf with the Golf Guy, Voices in the Community.com, and Jeffgolfguy.com. He is the author of multiple books, stories, articles, posts, and evaluations of other writers’ publications. Jeff began his public communications career in High School and has had a constant presence in sports commentary throughout the years, providing play-by-play and color analysis at many diverse levels, including announcing football, baseball, and basketball games, along with local and national golf tournaments, while performing on other media platforms as well. Jeff was an early pioneer in Sports Radio, hosting a weekly talk show, “Talking Golf with the Golf Guy,” broadcasted and aired on various radio stations throughout the regional market, syndicated nationally on The Rocky Mountain Golf Network, and offered on most of the recognized podcast directories and streaming services. Over his extensive announcing career, Jeff has provided the vocal narration for hundreds of voice-overs, commercials, radio programming, sports interviews, tournament updates, blogs, podcasts, audiobooks, and videos, including the original voice work on the best-selling X-Box Links golf game. Jeff also contributed voice and commentary on the Centennial production, “One Hundred Years of the Utah State Amateur,” which is available on iTunes and Apple Music. As a member of the Golf Writers Association of America, Jeff has attended and reported on-site more than a hundred golf tournaments, including an assortment of Major Golf Championships, including The United States Open Championship, The Masters, the PGA Championship, and The Ryder Cup, along with other competitions on the PGA Tours annual tournament schedule. Jeff has produced, directed, and distributed numerous film and video projects as stand-alone presentations while incorporating them within his blog, website, syndicated podcasts, and national radio programming. All are available for review on YouTube. Known as “The Voice of Golf” and “The Golf Guy” throughout the Western United States, Jeff is regularly sought for advice and counsel and often speaks to groups on golf-related subjects. You may contact Jeff by email at jeffgolfguy@att.net and on his website at www.jeffgolfguy.com.