Last Sunday, Seve Ballesteros told London's Sunday Telegraph that Tiger Woods has not beaten golfers nearly as good as Jack Nicklaus' main foes in the past. Although this is coming from a 44-year-old washed-up vet who thinks he can win the Masters this year (yeah, sure), Ballesteros is not too far off the bet on his assessment of Woods' competitors.
Now that Ernie Els won a PGA Tour event last week and has moved up to the third spot on the World Golf Ranking, many have jumped on Els' bandwagon. The affable South African is now being targeted as the 'true' rival of Woods.
But is that really the case? Win a tournament and suddenly the victor becomes Woods' rival. The same was said about Sergio Garcia after his win at the season-opening Mercedes Championships. Chris DiMarco, off to a blazing start in 2002, has 'clawed' much attention. Phil Mickelson and David Duval have been in that spotlight for a few years now.
Notwithstanding Ballesteros' inane prediction on his Masters showing this spring, consider Nicklaus' challengers in the 60s and the 70s. Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Tom Watson, Lee Trevino, Johnny Miller and, well, Seve Ballesteros-all multi-major champions who swapped big titles with Nicklaus in their heydays.
Garcia, DiMarco, Mickelson and Duval combine for one major among them. Throw in surging Retief Goosen, David Toms and Els and it's five majors among seven so-called challengers. Watson alone had eight, all during Nicklaus prime and a couple of which came with the Golden Bear as runner-up.
In 2001, the LPGA's triumvirate of Se Ri Pak, Karrie Webb and Annika Sorenstam combined for 16 victories in 36 events-44.4 percent of the tournaments on the entire Tour. That was the largest total of any threesome on the LPGA Tour in 22 years, and they managed to sweep the major circuit as well. The PGA Tour has tried to find and market such multi-horse race since 1997.
For golfers to be called Tiger's rivals, they would need a few Tour wins and at least a couple of major titles-and the ones before Woods came along do not count. Since Woods' historic Masters victory in 1997, there have only been two multiple major winners; Mark O'Meara, who won the Masters and the Open Championship in 1998, and Vijay Singh, the winner of the 1998 PGA Championship and the 2000 Masters. O'Meara has not won anything since and Singh, nearing 40, went winless in 2001 and is perhaps past his prime.
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