With Memorial looming, Jack Nicklaus discusses Tiger Woods and more
GOLF / TEEING OFF
The Golden Bear, holder of a record 18 major championships, says it's hard to compare different eras but he faced more multiple major champions in his day.
1 If Tiger Woods does return from knee surgery to play the Memorial next week at Dublin, Ohio, then the pro golf's spotlight can once again be shone in the proper direction -- on Woods and Jack Nicklaus.
Nicklaus, who turned 68 in January, is the host of the Memorial, but of course he is much more than that, the truest measuring stick for success for Woods in his remarkable career.
With the U.S. Open ticking closer and with no greater living expert on how to win it than Nicklaus, it could be a revealing week for host and guest.
Nicklaus remains close to the United States Golf Assn., and as an endorsee of the Royal Bank of Scotland, has entered into a deal that puts the two entities together in a business relationship.
His relationship with Woods is all about comparing success stories, but Nicklaus said it's hard to say who traveled the more difficult path.
"The problem is it's hard to compare eras," Nicklaus said. "It's a different game today, and a lot of guys from before, like even Hogan and Player, would have had a hard time today because of the distance you need to drive it. That's just a fact of what the game is.
"I don't know if we had as many good players, but the great players we had all were multiple major winners, so when I slipped up, there was somebody else on their 'A' game.
"There are great players now, but they might not have won a lot of majors, except for Tiger. Phil could be close. Ernie approached it, Vijay approached it. But that's about it. And that's a fact of life today."
2 Nicklaus won 18 major titles, more than any other, and that's the number Woods has been fixated on since he was a kid and taped a paper sheet of Nicklaus' statistics to his bedroom wall.
Nicklaus not only won the U.S. Open four times, and no one won more, but he also established another record that should not be overlooked. Nicklaus was second 19 times in the 162 majors he played.
Say Nicklaus wins roughly half of those, then he's at 28 major titles, and Woods -- at age 32 and with 13 majors so far -- would have no shot at getting close to that number.
But Nicklaus doesn't follow that kind of 'what if I won more?' mathematics.
"I didn't, and my record is what it is," he said. "I guess my record is not so sloppy."
3 So what if Woods has won four straight times at Torrey Pines, that doesn't give him any advantage when it's the U.S. Open we're talking about, does it?
