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Year of the Tiger

If you have to be a great golfer to run your own tournament, you probably have to be even greater to win it for the fourth time. In becoming the first player to register consecutive victories at the Target World Challenge, Tiger Woods — who won by a comfortable seven strokes against a star-studded field — was hardly playing the gracious host. He was at his destructive best, signing off the year with a flourish and reaffirming his pre-eminence in the world of go lf. As he clutched the trophy and donated his million-plus dollar winner’s cheque to one of his charities, it seemed like a good time for Woods to take stock of his achievements and chart his course for the future. With one Major title and six PGA Tour victories, 2007 has been a fairly good year for Woods. While it does not compare well with some of his early years as a professional — particularly his annus mirabilis in 2000 when he won three Majors and eight other tournaments — it is understandable why Woods regards it as a “great year.” At the end of 2007, Woods has reason to feel confident that he has returned to his winning ways and that the slump of 2003-2004 — during which he failed to win a single Major and seemed to struggle with the changes he made in his swing — has no bearing on the magnificence of his career.

At the age of 31, Woods goes into 2008 with 13 Majors and 61 PGA Tour titles. It is a record that compares favourably with that of other golfing greats — from the early era legends such as Walter Hagen and Sam Snead to modern day champions such as Arnold Palmer and Gary Player. Many believe that Tiger is already the greatest golfer of all time. But the record of the prodigiously talented Jack Nicklaus — 18 Majors and 73 PGA Tour wins — challenges any such claim. What is undeniable is that success has come to Woods faster and thicker than to any other golfing great. For instance, he had 24 PGA Tour titles before the age of 25 against Nicklaus’ 12. Most of the greats Woods has been compared with over the last decade peaked only after they touched 30. Nicklaus, for instance, won four of his Majors between the ages of 31 and 33 and picked up another six after he was 35 (including his last, the Masters in 1986, at a ripe 46). A few days short of his 32nd birthday, Woods has plenty of golf left in him. “Hopefully, my 30s will be even better than my 20s,” he once remarked. If, in his third decade, he plays anywhere close to the level he achieved in his second, Woods will obliterate every significant record — achieve Bradmanesque milestones. This is why the cult of Tiger — the public fascination with a man who is a legend but is by no means done yet — grows and intensifies.

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