Tiger Woods Makes Prediction About His Legacy

In an interview that aired on Thursday, Tiger Woods, once the greatest golf player on earth, made a bold prediction about his future on Tour and his place in history.

Specifically, when asked if he will tie Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 professional majors, Woods replied, “To be honest with you, no.”  He went on to say, he would surpass it.

Woods needs four more majors to tie Nicklaus, five to pass him, but he is now more than eight years removed from his last major win, the 2008 US Open.

Woods hasn’t even played in 10 majors since that win, including none of them in 2016, and he missed the cut another half dozen times in that same span.  His last top-10 finish in a major was at the 2013 Open Championship. His last win in any tournament was also in 2013.

And let us not forget he hasn’t played a single competitive round of golf in nearly 14 months.

Being braggadocios and bold is nothing new for Tiger.  This is the same guy who told us all that he would break Jack’s record before he had even won a PGA TOUR event.

However, this isn’t the same Woods who has made claims like this in the past.  He is older now, playing on a rebuilt knee and a balky back.  He isn’t battle tested like he was when he finished winning the US Amateur in 1996 (for the third straight time), eschewed going to PGA Qualifying School to earn his card, and with the six tournament exemptions afforded him, won a tournament in his fifth start on Tour.

This feels like a lot of bark, but very little bite.  Woods’s father trained him to be mentally tough, to use intimidation on his opponents.  He was a master of not letting the moment get to him when others wilted under the pressure.  When he was on top of the world, seemingly invincible, he could say something like this and know at least half the field would think, “Yeah, he’s going to do it.  I can’t stop him.”  Those days are long gone, though.  He no longer has the game to back those words up.

Gone are the days when he could win with his “C game.”  If he is going to win, he is going to have to have his “A game.”

Gone are the days when he could show up on the first tee or the leaderboard and players would suddenly lose their swings as if Woods was some kind of golf incubus sucking the games out of his opponents to make himself stronger.  The players nowadays get on Tour having played in the cauldron of major collegiate golf, or the grind of the mini-tours.  They are not so easily intimidated, certainly not by a guy whom they haven’t seen strike a golf shot in anger in nearly the length of time it would take to get to Mars and back.

Woods’s bravado is commendable, and in reality, what is he going to say?  He can’t say, “No, I don’t think I’ll get there now.”  He has to say he will surpass Nicklaus, or he would not be the competitor we saw simply dominate the game in a way that is hard to describe. I f he doesn’t believe he will do it, he won’t do it. Any winner will tell you half the battle is convincing yourself you are capable and worthy of winning.

However, in the world that Woods now finds himself, a world in which his impressive number of skeletons have been evicted from his closet, a world in which he is a divorced father of two, a world in which his body is falling apart and taking his game with it, you would think he would opt for a little humility.

The people who didn’t like Woods before will be irritated by his words.  They will say, “How can a guy who can’t even tee it up at the Safeway Open in October hope to win in April, June, July, or August?”  They will see his words for what they likely are, an attempt by Woods at convincing the one and only person he has to convince: Himself.

The people who liked Woods all along will love his words, but he will have made no new fans with them.

Cover Photo via YouTube