Why Tiger Woods will beat Jack Nicklaus – The Golf Blog’s Tiger Woods v. Jack Nicklaus chart
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Click here for Interactive Chart
The Golf Blog says: OK, golf fans, we’ve launched a new website at tigerwoodsvjacknicklaus.com (click Interactive Chart above) dedicated to analyzing the Tiger Woods v. Jack Nicklaus competition for major victories. Last month, Tiger Woods said that he still “absolutely” believes he will beat Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 majors, notwithstanding Tiger’s longest major drought of his career (2 and a half years–similar to the drought he had back in 2002 to 2005).
Well, we’ve crunched the numbers. The stats are on Tiger’s side. If you look above at The Golf Blog’s Tiger Woods v. Jack Nicklaus Chart, the key points to recognize are these:
1. Tiger Woods (noted on the red line in the Chart) is still AHEAD of Jack Nicklaus’s major pace. Graphically, Tiger’s red line is above Jack Nicklaus’s pace, depicted on the blue line. Only if Tiger goes 0-fer in majors for 2011 will he fall back to even with Jack’s pace, with 14 majors by age 35. In other words, Tiger has 4 more majors next year in 2011 to keep ahead of Jack’s pace. Otherwise, Tiger would fall back to even with Jack.
2. But here’s the kicker: even if Tiger continues his longest major drought of his career by failing to win any major in 2011 (so no majors in close to 4 years), Tiger would only have to win 1 major in the following 3 years (2012, 2013, 2014)–meaning just 1 out of 12 more majors–to keep pace with Jack. After Jack won the Masters at age 35 (his 14th major), Jack didn’t win one again until 3 years later at age 38. That gives Tiger a lot of years and major tourneys (16 majors over 4 years), simply to win 1 major to keep tied with Jack.
3. Neither Tiger nor Jack had a major drought longer than 3 years, except for Jack when he was over the age of 40. So the stats suggest that Tiger, who turns just 35 years old in December, will win a major very soon to break out of his current drought.
4. And, given Tiger’s past history in which he won multiple majors 4 separate times at ages 24, 26, 29, and 30, we can hardly rule out that Tiger will have a multiple major year. Jack Nicklaus won multiple majors at ages 23, 26, 32, 35, and 40. Indeed, it’s pretty eery how similar Tiger and Jack are. As the graphs show, they are almost twins.
UPDATE: In 2012, Tiger failed to win a major for the 4th consecutive year. We have changed our view on the likelihood Tiger will beat Jack’s record. Click here.
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