Sometimes an opinion is so ludicrously off base that it is best to ignore. Like asserting that Scottie Scheffler’s 2024 season matched or surpassed anything that Tiger Woods had done in a year.
Using common sense is blasé. Being absurd? Now that gets hits in the social media world, so whatever.
It’s just that Woods’s 2000 season (nine wins, three of them majors, including two by a total of a combined 23 strokes) blows away Scheffler’s ’24 performance (seven wins, one major). In fact, so, too, is Woods’s 2006 season (in just 15 starts he won eight times, two of them majors) more impressive than what Scheffler did in ’24.
Already down a rabbit’s hole, why not mention Woods’s 2007 season (seven wins, one a major, in just 16 starts) and not-to-be overlooked is the season that truly ignited liftoff—1999, when he won eight times including the PGA Championship.
To pore over Woods’s accomplishments, you’ll need serious binge-watching commitment, but in assessment here are the two most golden nuggets:
- He completed the career Grand Slam by the age of 24, then did it two more times by age 32.
- Of the five longest winning streaks in PGA Tour history, three belong to Woods, who went for seven in a row in 2006–07; six in a row in 1999–2000; and five straight in 2007–08.
Refreshing my memory and rekindling the awe around which the Woods of 1996–2013 was enveloped is to recall a comment made to me as we waited for one of the hundreds of shuttle buses required of those who were on the Tiger Trail. “Do you think,” said Michael Mayo, “this is what it was like for our grandfathers to watch Babe Ruth?”
Cool perspective. Spot on, too. Just as Ruth dominated baseball and transformed the sport into pure Americana, Woods widened golf’s appeal exponentially and made it must-watch TV.
So, here’s a confession: As much as the 1996–2013 era ranks as mesmerizing, the 2014–24 years are utterly painful, relative to who we’re talking about. Yes, the ’19 Masters remains a golden entry in golf history, but to study the last 11 disjointed seasons is to come away saddened at such a drop-off in quality play (83 tournaments, just three wins, and more missed cuts (16) than top 10s (14)) and crestfallen by tacky routines.
Consider the end-of-year gathering in the Bahamas, the Hero World Challenge. Players are there for a fistful of unearned world-ranking points and wheelbarrows of free money. The pre-tournament press conference is equally uninspiring. Hero boss Dr. Pawan Munjal gushes about the golf course, Tiger provides health updates that he can’t trust and tries to plant optimism that is unrealistic.
Thus, over the last four years we have gotten, “Well, other parts are taking the brunt of the load so I’m a little more sore in other areas, but the ankle’s good.” And “I had another procedure done to it to alleviate the pain I had going down my leg.” And “I’ve had 10 (surgeries)—five knee, five back—so an even 10.” And “So when you get plantar fasciitis, that’s the worst thing you can do is walk.”
(If you’re playing at home the answers are from 2023, 2024, 2021, and 2022, respectively.)
Usually ever year “I’m not tournament sharp, I’m still not there” and “hopefully next year I’ll be physically stronger” are popped in and there’s a reminder of Ben Hogan. In 1953 the great man, still playing on legs seriously impacted by a horrific car accident in 1949, won each of the three majors in which he played, and five of his seven starts in all.
Only Hogan was 41 at the time. Woods is on the threshold of 49 and in 29 of his last 39 major championships starts he’s been a MC, DNP, or WD. At the Masters, where he has won five times, since the magic of 2019 he has made four starts at Augusta, shooting level par cumulatively over the first two rounds, but 31-over for the weekend.
Woods missed the cut in three of his four majors in ’24 and has played 72 holes just 10 times in the 23 majors in which he’s played since 2015.
None of that bodes well for Tiger, who plays for the majors, or many in the media who still chase these medical updates at the Hero World Challenge as if directions to the Holy Grail hang in the balance.
Dr. Munjal, to his credit, doesn’t seem to care a lick about the big ones. “It’s great thing for Tiger, of course, if he wins a major or more majors, and it (would) work very well for Hero. But I signed up for Tiger with what he’s achieved in the past.”
Bingo—we have landed at the truth. Tiger Woods, who was just 37 when the first half of his incomparable career closed out in 2013, is still a business commodity, even if the overall measure of his game since 2014 pales in comparison to his epic years.
Dr. Munjal is paying for 1996–2013. So, too, is the PGA Tour, which reportedly has directed $100 million of the $1.5 billion from private equity to go to Woods—a huge thank you for staying loyal and not fleeing to LIV.
In a way, my colleague’s comparison to Babe Ruth fits Woods even more nicely. At least when one remembers the Babe also played on past his prime. Released by the Yankees after 1934, Ruth at age 40 wanted to play another year with the hapless Boston Braves, being promised a percentage of team profits by crusty owner Emil Fuchs.
As large crowds filled the ballpark to watch Ruth, despite just hitting six home runs in 28 games, the game’s greatest player had reason to smile.
Wrote Grantland Rice in late April of 1935: “(A youngster) asked, ‘Mr. Ruth, the boys tell me at school that you are no long champion. That isn’t true, is it?’”
“You go back and tell ’em it’s true,” said Ruth. “The old Babe’s no longer champion. But tell ’em the crowds don’t seem to care and the Babe still gets the champion’s dough.”
If that kid were still around, Woods would tell him similarly, likely using code words, “it’s part of the process.”
No question “The Greatest” that has ever played the game.