Tiger Is Unstoppable

Filed in archive Golf News on February 25, 2008

Courtesy: CBS Sports

What can you say? What CAN you say? Tiger Woods is as close to golf perfection as any human being can possibly come.

His feats are reaching the point where golf writers are simply running out of ways to describe him, explain him or praise him.

Earlier this season, Woods went on record as saying that winning the Grand Slam - which has never been done - is within reach.

Now, if those words came out of anyone else's mouth, they would be laughed out of the game.



When Tiger Woods says he can win the Grand Slam, you listen and ponder the enormity of what he's saying: all four majors in one season. A perfect season. Or a Perfect Storm if you compete against him.

His performance in the final of the first event in the World Golf Championship was stunning. It was also the longest day ever on a golf course for Stewart Cink.

Cink was already road kill after the first 18 holes in the morning. Woods said "I put a bunch of heat on Stew and got off to a good start". What he actually did was light a barbecue under Cink's carcass and roast him until he was done.

Inevitably, statistics and other mind-numbing combinations of figures enter a sports story. But this is one case where the numbers truly do embody the story.

Woods has won a tick under 20 million dollars from the World Golf Championships. That number alone puts him 17th on the all-time earnings list! Just one series of events!

He turned pro in 1996; in 12 years, he has won practically 100 million dollars on golf courses around the world. Many people - even non-golfers - are aware that he earns nearly 100 million dollars each year in golf and golf-related activities and is well on his way to becoming the world's first billionaire athlete.

In terms of wins, his 63rd on Sunday moved him ahead of Arnold Palmer and into fourth place on the all-time list. When Tiger wins number 64, he will tie Ben Hogan. Then come Nicklaus and Snead and that's it.

There are no more names after that. And Tiger Woods is only 32.

That's perhaps the most significant number of all.