The Philly Phanatics

There are not words in my vocabulary to describe the utter dominance of Eldrick "Tiger" Woods. I think he is the single most dominant athlete in a sport in recent history. There is no "Tiger Woods" of basketball or football or probably even water polo. There is one Tiger Woods, and no one is more dominant than he.

Go ahead. Disagree. I dare you. I'll counter any argument that you can give me.

Tiger is the only person in the modern history of the majors to hold all four tournament titles at one time, meaning he won them all in a one year span. Nicklaus. Palmer. Snead. Nelson. None of them have done it. Tiger did it...at the age of 25. So ridiculous was this achievement, that it is named for him the "Tiger Slam."

The field for the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship had the best players seeded from 1 to 32 this week. Tiger was the #1 seed. Duh. He has the record for the largest margin of victory for a championship match, winning this year 8&7 over Stewart Cink. He only lost three holes out of the 29 he played against Cink, while winning 11 holes and tying on the remaining 15. Tiger also holds the record for the largest margin of victory in any of the matches, winning his first round match-up in 2006 over Stephen Ames 9&8. To do that, he had to win 9 out of 10 holes, and tie on the one he didn't win. With his win today, he has now won the this specific tournament three times. No one in the field has ever won it more than once. The tournament has been around since 1999. Tiger has won it three times in nine years.

Now, let's add to this fact. The World Golf Champtionships (WGC) has three tournaments. The WGC-Accenture Match Play Championships, which as stated, Tiger has won three times in nine years. The other two tournaments are the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational and the WGC-CA Championship. Guess what? Darren Clarke is the one of two people to win more than one of these tournaments...in their history! And he has only won two. The other would be Tiger Woods who has won these tournaments a total of 15 times. There have only been 27 WGC events...and he has won 15 of them (55.6%). When he does not win, he has placed second twice, fourth twice, and fifth twice. This equates to a Top 5 finish in a WGC event 78% of the time. And these tournaments are not against Joe Hacker. The field is hand-picked from the top 50 golfers in the world. And Tiger is able to win these tournaments 13 more times than anyone else in the elite ranks of world golf. Yeah, tell me that isn't dominance.

He has torn his sport apart so thoroughly in his early career that they had to "Tiger-proof" courses by adding yardage to holes to eliminate the advantage he had by pounding the ball and making par fives into just average par fours. Augusta had to change the course after Tiger tore through it like a piece of meat in 1997 winning by 12 strokes over the nearest competitor.

This is just another chapter in the dominant career of Tiger Woods.

I officially take back anything I have said about the Grand Slam being impossible. Tiger Woods is playing better than anyone I have ever seen. Tiger is like Babe Ruth hitting 60 home runs in 1927, more than any other AL team hit that season. If Tiger putts like he has thus far this season, he will win all four majors and he will be undoubtedly the most dominant athlete this generation has ever seen.