With the first major of the year nearly six weeks away in Augusta, Tiger Woods has yet to make an appearance on the PGA Tour.
One report says his back problems may keep him from ever playing again. However, Woods’ posted a video of him swinging on a simulator, that was captioned by “Progressing nicely.” And that means Woods will play at Augusta in April. If he can walk, he will play. He loves playing at Augusta, where he has won four Masters’ titles.
Nonetheless, Woods’ recent health problems has left the door open for many of Woods’ detractors _ some of them out of pure spite _ to try and diminish his accomplishments.
However, credit Phil Mickelson for putting Woods’ career, which includes 79 PGA Tour victories and 14 majors into proper context.
Lefty says there is no one in the game today that is even close, and that includes today’s young stars like Rory McIIroy, Jordan Spieth, Jason Day, and Rickie Fowler.
“There is nobody in the game of golf that I have seen that is remotely close to the level of performance Tiger was in his prime,” Mickelson said, in an interview with Golf.com. “Mentally, short game or ball-striking, I don’t think anybody matches him in any of those areas. And Tiger put them all together in one to create a career that is mind-boggling.”
Mickelson should know this first hand, having witnessed Woods’ brilliance up close and personal for 20 years.
“It’s difficult for me to see the game of golf returning to the level that it was during his heyday without somebody like that,” Mickelson said. “And as great as the young players are, the level that I’ve seen out of him, especially when you go back to 2000 at the U.S. Open and his performance when he held all four major championships at once, I think we’re decades away from anybody getting back to that level.”
Tiger Woods is always going to be a polarizing figure, and in the oddest of ways. Some blacks don’t like him because he isn’t black enough, and some whites don’t like him because he is black, and seems to prefer white women….lot’s of white women.
So, there are always going to be a lot of things you can say about Tiger Woods, and a lot of it is not good. But at some point in the conversation, if you don’t call him the greatest of his generation by far, and arguably the greatest of all time, the conversation is not complete.
