I have always been a Tiger Woods fan.  For some unbelievable reason, that’s the exception amongst most golfers in South Africa.  To me he is the greatest golfer in the history of the game and betting against him or hoping to see him beaten is like going to the races and hoping the champion is beaten.  I like to see the best win, and win often and Tiger has been fantastic for the game of golf just like champion horses are for racing.   I can’t see why so many got so much pleasure from seeing his fall.

Some two years later, and following his 77^th PGA Tour win yesterday, he is once again back at No.1 in the world – and one should remember he fell to 58^th at one time.  Then his critics said he would never win again – anything.  They claimed players had lost his fear of him and would challenge him at the end of tournaments and beat him under pressure.  They were wrong on both counts.  Now that he has won 6 of his last 20 tournaments for a 30% winning statistic, they want to claim it’s all about majors.  They conveniently forget that Tiger is winning in a professional era with dozens of talented competitors for millions and not the 60’s when smaller numbers of professional players competed for small money and even the British Open was played midweek in Britain so that the usual golfing nuts and wealthy hackers could play the course on the weekend.   The truth is, you will never silence critics, they will always find something else to moan or grumble about and they will ignore the stats.

Statistics don’t lie – Tiger  Woods over his career has a winning rate of approximately 26% - higher than any other golfer in history and far ahead of Sam Snead at 10% of tournaments entered and Jack Nicklaus at 16%.  Golf is a sport where you lose far more often than you ever win and Tiger Woods has won a bigger percentage of tournaments and majors that he has taken part in than any other golfer in history – and by a mile too.  One day, when they are old, and he is acknowledged as the greatest of all time, I wonder if their memories won’t conveniently fade and they will remember him with some nostalgia?  After all, you now find nobody who supported apartheid and everybody ultimately respects the greatest. 

I like this quote from Golf Digest writer Ron Sirak, “Tiger has won at a clip the game has never known.  Savor that, enjoy that and, most of all, appreciate that.  We are watching someone whose achievements will be discussed as long as sport remains relevant.  And I know this: I won’t have to struggle to remember what I saw.  The greatness of Tiger Woods is burned in my memory.”