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 Why is Tiger Woods smiling? Well, perhaps because he's the new Superman of American Sports |
of sports, it's Tiger Woods
By MAURY ALLEN
of TheColumnists.com
Let’s get something
straight here. I never played golf. I never even enjoyed whacking
a few balls off a driving range with pals. Most of my shots landed
at my feet to much laughter. I’m a tennis guy.
I always believed the great line offered by famed sportswriter
Jimmy Cannon, one of my boyhood heroes, when he said of golf,
“When a 70-year-old guy can beat a 20-year-old guy, it ain’t
a sport.”
Jim Thorpe was also my definition of the world’s greatest
athlete after I read of his exploits as a track and field man,
a professional football player and a New York Giants baseball
outfielder around World War I.
Then came Jack Dempsey, Red Grange, Bill Tilden and Babe Ruth
for the way they dominated their sports in the 1920s. I never
put Bobby Jones in that class.
In the 1930s and 1940s, when I began taking serious note, it
was Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio, Sid Luckman and Sammy Baugh,
Ted Williams and Bob Feller and The Brown Bomber, Joe Louis,
the way he dispatched alleged opponents in his Bum of the Month
Club.
Then came the time of Michael Jordan. No one ever stood above
the crowd as he did in leading the Chicago Bulls into fame and
fortune. He had a little help in his five man game.
Now I have to throw in the towel. I have to admit my wrongs.
I have to switch my allegiance from any stars in baseball, basketball,
football, tennis or even boxing.
There is only one “greatest athlete” out there now
and it has to be Tiger Woods. No athlete has dominated his sport
as Woods has over the last dozen years with his 13th major title
the other week at the PGA at the Southern Hills Country Club
in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
At 31, he is five majors behind Jack Nicklaus and seems certain
to put Nicklaus in his rear lights in a couple of years.
Like Louis and Jordan and Tilden before him, the competition
seems to wither before Woods when he gets into gear. He has never
lost a major title on a Sunday when he was leading on a Saturday
and he seems to be getting better at his game at an age most
athletes find revolting.
I don’t know if Woods can play tennis even though he has
now become a great pal of that game’s number 1, Roger Federer.
I don’t know if he can throw a baseball at 90 miles and
hour or hit one thrown at that speed. I don’t think Peyton
Manning has anything to worry about in defending his Super Bowl
crown from Woods and I don’t think if he joined the Knicks
they would suddenly become the odds-on favorite for an NBA crown.
Can he box, swim or make the Olympics in China next year as a
decathlon athlete? Who knows?
He just seems to be putting all the greats of his game--Bobby
Jones, Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, Arnold Palmer and Nicklaus--in
the also-ran category as he now controls the game and breaks
records every time he steps out on a course to address the ball.
Woods is one of the few athletes in any sport who was special
and accomplished almost from his start and has yet to show any
signs of decline.
Athletes used to slow down in their 30s
and very few were effective in their 40s. Now the huge salaries
keep them around a lot longer. It doesn’t mean they are
getting any better. All it means is they are getting richer.
Woods is different. He has made adjustments to his game and changes
in his demeanor. His wife, Elin and baby Sam, have changed Woods
to a major degree. His late father was always his focus as he
came through the 72nd hole. Now he is looking for his wife and
child and is public about sharing his success and joy about them
with the media.
The fun of sports is often the comparisons of generations. Could
Babe Ruth take Roger Clemens downtown? Would Dick Butkus nail
Peyton Manning before he could get out of the pocket? Could Michael
Jordan score at will against Kobe Bryant? Who knows?
Would Tiger Woods leave Palmer, Nicklaus, Nelson, Hogan, Jones
and the rest in the dust as he drove through the toughest course
in golf?
I think the answer is absolutely so. I think he is the best to
ever play the game and has to reign now as the best athlete in
the American scene.
Will he be that 70-year-old guy someday who will beat that 20-year-old
kid and make everybody recognize that Jimmy Cannon was wrong,
that golf is a sport and that Tiger Woods will be appreciated
as the greatest athlete in the first half of the 21st century?
©2007 by Maury Allen. The Maury Allen caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. The illustration is courtesy of DC Comics and Wikipedia. This column first posted Aug. 20, 2007.
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