Golf Architect Tom Doak once told me in an interview that he thought people should speak their minds more often. “Amen” to that. As James Fenimore Cooper wrote, “Candor is a proof of both a just frame of mind and of a good tone of breeding. It is a quality that belongs equally to the honest man and to the gentleman.”
I love it when some one speaks their mind. So imagine my delight when British writer John Hopkins – one of the brightest minds in golf writing – flat out predicted Tiger Woods would not beat Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 majors.
This of course ignores the fact that some are actually starting to count Sawgrass as a major – which it should be, by the way, but that’s a battle for later.
Here’s some of what Hop had to say:
“My money is still on Nicklaus. Woods’s injured leg does appear to have recovered but say he attracts another injury, this time to the other leg or to an arm. Say he is injured in a car accident as Ben Hogan was or, dare one say it, physically attacked? What happens then?
Let me call another witness, one Jack Nicklaus. “Tiger’s got an unbelievable work ethic and he’s so fit,” Nicklaus recently told Rick Reilly the American sports writer. “But that knee makes it a little less certain.”
Nicklaus continued: “You guys are all so willing to hand it to Tiger: ‘[he’s the] greatest player ever’, like it’s already over … I’m just saying the kid is amazing and I’ll be the first to congratulate him, but doesn’t he actually have to do it first?”
I’ll start by saying I don’t agree. I think Tiger might even get there by St. Andrews next year. The rotating crop this year range from medium-hard, (Bethpage), to too easy (Turnberry, Hazeltine National). He also owns Pebble Beach, so give him two majors conservatively, three if he plays well, heck four if everyone decides to just shrug their shoulders and count their money.
I also think poor Hopkins is going to get treated roughly in the press here. The vacuous, Tiger-philic acolytes of St. Eldrick (broadcasters and soft-news journalists) will burn him at the stake faster than the Knights Templar on Friday the 13th, 1307. Feeding frenzy in 3…2…1…
The hardcore golf writers will also disagree. If reports that the knee is now bionic, so as to be even more structurally sound than nature – after all, he can afford that – if those reports are true, he’s only four majors away and has ten – fifteen years to collect only five more majors.
(Again, unless we start to count Sawgrass – which we should, then Tiger needs an additional two to tie Jack, who won three Players’ Championships to Tiger’s one.)
Tiger is too close to fail. Besides, with the way he’s singularly devoted his entire life to this goal, so that it will ultimately define him, he won’t stop. Heck, we’d see him out there with a walker and a case of Ensure at age 75 if he were one major short.
But I deeply respect Hopkins’s moxie in taking a stand and drawing a line. Good onya, mate. I don’t agree with you, but I trust your instincts that you think you might be right on a hunch, and I admire your courage in taking on the biggest name in golf and his PR machine.
Maybe Hop is right. Spirit is 3/4 of the remedy. Maybe if someone, anyone, stood up -Padraig gets his shot now – maybe it might be several years before Tiger passed Jack. Merion 2013 for example.
On that note, “attaboy Jack” too. Tiger does earn all his accolades, but he takes a lot in return as well: crew neck shirts, throwing clubs, swearing, exorbitant appearance fees, star-system treatment, and rules on tee times and autographs to name a few. Woods is not Nicklaus, who made an EXTRA effort to be gracious, grateful, and humble. Woods is civil and obliging when he wins, and is petulant when he loses. At Oakmont, he seethed, arms akimbo, telling everyone he was “pissed,” and at Pinehurst, he barely held in his volatile temper after losing to Michael Campbell, where he also raked a green with his putter.
Well, I can’t blame him there. I’d be chewing a metal bar if I lost to Michael Campbell. Campbell still has a warrant out for his arrest in North Carolina for highway robbery for that one. What a cruel joke that was on the golf writers! Everybody wrote the same thing that day!
Speaking of everybody writing the same thing, it’d be nice to see a real challenge to Tiger, because all Tiger, all the time is boring. Boring to watch, boring to write about, boring to read. It’s hysterical how many writers have the “Tiger form” all ready pre-written on the computer and running in the background while the tournament is going on! “Tiger Woods won his ____ major today at _____ course. It was the ___ time he won this major. He won by a record ___ shots. This time ______ played the role of hapless doormat. Jack Nicklaus said _______. The runner up said ____. Among Tiger’s miracles were two hole-outs with a 4-iron, 6 putts over __ feet in length, and __ chip-ins. Stevie said this, Elin did that, the kids did the other, I puked, The End.”
Oh, and if you’re really Tiger-philic you get the foundation, his golf designs, and the Labrodoodles in there. Is there a drool bucket anywhere?
That’s my other point. No one is bigger than the game. They try to make it so, so they can sell you things. But it’s bad for any sport to hitch its star to one man. Zinedine Zidane showed that to the soccer world. His boorishness cost France the World Cup. Barry Bonds is another example: what a goat-screw that wet fish Bud Selig made of that deal. Now the two greatest home run records can only be spoken of in confusion and controversy.
Anyway, back to macro, Nicklaus is still the greatest ambassador for golf and the virtues golf teaches about altruism. Until Tiger becomes more transparent, accessible, and genteel, he’ll be the game’s greatest player, but not it’s greatest champion. Heck, plenty of guys have him beat in that department, like Arnold Palmer and Gary Player. With Tiger we get a canned image. What other player announces everything by his website? You don’t see Retief Goosen releasing pix of his Rhodesian Ridgeback licking his face. And then we are expected to relay Tiger’s the benedictions from on high without the slightest question:
“Tiger thinks grand slam is reasonably attainable,”
“Tiger says his game has never been stronger.”
“Tiger says he’s never felt better” (which by the way he tried to run past everyone U.S. Open week while desperately injured).
Tiger could tell us he was morphing “Transformers-style” into a 40-foot robot of death that shoots fire from it’s eyesockets, and would destroy a major city a day if he didn’t get a huge appearance fee, and we’d all line up breathlessly to sit in his lap and make little cooing sounds in his ear.
What’s my problem with Tiger you ask? It’s not my problem with Tiger, it’s my problem with the star system. Human nature being what it is, I doubt you, I, or most other pros could resist the siren call that such fawning adulation brings. I think if it were Sean O’Hair or Charles Howell or Vijay, we’d be doing the exact same thing.
Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you. Boo hoo hoo.
Sadly, there are some axioms of journalism that – no matter how horribly horribly wrong they are – we can’t get rid of them: “Where heroes don’t exist, it is necessary to invent them,” “you must convince everyone they are watching the greatest thing in sports right now,” and “draw in the last casual eyeball out there, even if you sell out the game’s virtue, and alienate the fervent fan, the life blood of the fan base.”
Oh…and promote what makes the most money.
There is a more important rule, though. Rules/laws bind everyone, high and low, or they are not laws at all. Perhaps the greatest champions are those that embrace such altruism despite their success. Ask not what your fame can do for you, ask what you can do with your fame…and not just as a tax write-off or investment to make more money…
Tiger it’s not you, it’s the system. It’s not good for golf when the side question we have to ask yourself all the time is “What are they trying to sell me?”
The Masters can’t get here fast enough.
