The NY Times Damon Hack, who is writing some of the best articles on golf in the mainstream media, weighs in on Tiger Woods’ British Open victory with this article that summarizes where Tiger stands in relation to the greatest golfers in history.
Woods, who is 30, won his 11th professional major championship (14th if you include his three straight US Amateur championships), which tied him with Walter Hagen and places him seven professional major victories behind Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 majors. No one else stands between Woods and Nicklaus, and Nicklaus did not win his 11th professional major until he was 32.
After Nicklaus won seven professional majors by 1967, he had his biggest lull in his prime when he went the next 12 majors without a win, from the last two of ’67 through the first two of 1970. Nicklaus came back to win 10 more by the end of 1980, and then added on his sixth Masters in 1986 for his 18th.
In the best stretch of his professional career, Woods won seven majors in less than three years from the 1999 P.G.A. Championship at Medinah Country Club to the 2002 United States Open at Bethpage Black. Then, Woods went 10 majors without a victory between 2002 and 2005 as he went through an extensive swing change that flattened his swing plane, but with the victory over this past weekend, Woods has now won three of the last seven majors and will enter the final major of the year — the P.G.A. at Medinah in August — as the odd’s-on favorite again.