Slate's Bizbox
sports nut: The stadium scene.

Tiger vs. NobodyWill the lack of a suitable rival hurt Tiger Woods' legacy?

By Dave Larzelere
Posted Wednesday, April 9, 2008, at 10:59 AM ET

(Continued from page 1)

Palmer would win only two more majors after his showdown with Nicklaus at Oakmont. His seventh and last came at the 1964 Masters, where Nicklaus, the 1963 champion, helped him into his green jacket. Nicklaus also won his final major—his record-setting 18th—at Augusta, but it came in 1986, 22 years after Arnie's last stand.

When you consider that timeline, it seems ridiculous that the two golfers are linked together in our minds. It's a testament to the fact that their on-course battles came at the dawn of golf's popularity as a television spectacle. They were also perfect counterpoints to each other, so starkly different in style and appearance, each in full possession of something the other dearly coveted. As O'Connor puts it, "Arnie had the fans and wanted the trophies. Nicklaus had the trophies and wanted the fans."

Which brings us back to Woods, today's golfer-king who has the trophies and the fans but no rival. Going by the Arnie-and-Jack index, it's hard to imagine what this absent adversary could add to Tiger's narrative, because Tiger himself is the entire equation. As the most charismatic and marketable golfer who's ever lived, he is the clear heir to Palmer, the sport's first great salesman-idol. And, of course, he is the only credible heir to Nicklaus, simply because he's so overwhelmingly and consistently dominant.

In the end, the yin-and-yang theory falls apart when it comes to golf. The best golfers play the course and not the man. This was Nicklaus' great edge over Palmer from the start. All of Arnie's Army couldn't budge Jack's intractable will, but his relentless excellence got inside Palmer's head and made him an old man before his time.

Woods has exerted a similar power over his opponents. You can make the case statistically (an economist at Berkeley has shown that other golfers play worse when Tiger is in the field), and you can see it with your own eyes in the final rounds of majors. While Tiger has had his share of career-defining duels—Sergio at Medinah, Bob May at Valhalla, Chris DiMarco at the Masters—you never got the sense that he was playing those guys exactly, although they most definitely were playing him.

Tiger's sights have always been on bigger game. In Arnie and Jack, O'Connor recounts a conversation that Nicklaus had after playing against the son of Bobby Jones in the 1959 U.S. Amateur. Nineteen years old at the time, Nicklaus said, "Jones is the greatest golfer who ever lived and probably ever will live. That's my goal, Bobby Jones. It's the only goal."

Tiger has a similar goal, always has. He also has one hell of a rival. Golf's marquee showdown is Tiger vs. Jack, and it's on again this weekend in Augusta.

VIEW AS SINGLE PAGE
Print This ArticlePRINTDiscuss this in The FrayDISCUSSEmail to a FriendE-MAIL
Share on FacebookPost to MySpace!Share with MixxDigg ThisShare with RedditShare with del.icio.usShare with FurlShare with Ma.gnolia.comShare with SphereShare with Stumble Upon
Dave Larzelere is a freelance writer in Berkeley, Calif. He writes about boxing for the Sporting Blog and No Mas.
Photograph of Tiger Woods by Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images.
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES
Washington Post