Anyone who watched Tiger Woods dominate golf from 1997-2008 would know that it’s a very uncontroversial take to say that he could have and should have surpassed Jack Nicklaus’ 18 major titles, and easily.
I’ve said for years that Tiger probably should have won 25 majors due to his dominance, his talent, physical gifts and dedication to his craft
However, even while he stood atop the golf world early in his career, he was already beginning to break down physically from the horrific swing models he employed since his youth.
Now, I get emails, so to those of you who can’t bear to read or hear a word about Tiger Woods that isn’t worshipful – get over it. I’m talking about his swing models, not his quality of play.
Yes, he was amazingly long off the tee, and yes, his iron work was superb, and yes, his short game was jaw-droppingly sharp.
Yes, he won tons of events on Tour and worldwide, and yes, he has won 15 majors – if only those who have done what he’s done can talk about the golf swing, then no one can, except perhaps…
Jack Nicklaus?
Of course, it’s ridiculous to ask someone how many majors they’ve won because they are critiquing a golf swing – you don’t ask football speed coaches or baseball pitching coaches how many Super Bowls or World Series they’ve won, because studying, analyzing and critiquing technique has absolutely nothing to do with actual playing.
Two completely different skill sets – but let’s say Jack Nicklaus can talk about swing techniques with regards to Tiger, would that make Team Tiger happy?
“You’re Great, Tiger – But The Way You’re Swinging, Lad…”
Here’s what Jack has to say about winning 18 majors, as published in Essentially Sports by writer Meenakshi Karn:
In the latest episode of 5 Clubs on YouTube, Nicklaus revealed why Woods will never come to his level. “Never had an injury the whole time I played,” Nicklaus said.
However, he did mention one notable exception which was a hip injury that caught up with him towards the end of his career. “I had my hip problem, but that didn’t really get me until near the end of my career when I was 58 or 59 years old,” Nicklaus recalled.
In any sport where one is chasing records, longevity and fitness are critical factors, because of the length of time it takes to accumulate anything in record numbers.
Jack continues:
“Having the good health and the good fortune to be able to play in every single one of them” is crucial.
He believes that his own good health was a key factor in his ability to play in every major championship from 1962 to 1998, a feat he doubts will ever be matched.
“I was very fortunate that I kept myself in shape to be able to do that,” Nicklaus added and well, Woods’s career has been quite the opposite and marred with injuries and surgeries.
It’s right there in black and white, my friends – barring the serious lower right leg injuries Tiger incurred in 2021 when he was already nearly done playing golf full-time because of his back issues, the only other really serious injuries he suffered that weren’t swing-related were in the ’07-’08 period where he allegedly damaged his ACL while jogging (or being kicked in the knee during Special Forces sparring, take your pick) and incurred a hairline leg fracture from doing heavy lifting.
Those injuries aside, all of his other injuries and subsequent surgeries were the result of the way he swung his golf clubs – every model he has ever been observed using is of the Modern Golf Swing breed, making all of them mechanically-unsound.
All of the previous left knee injuries and surgeries, all of the back injuries – courtesy of the Modern Golf Swing.
If you don’t believe me about the back, then you haven’t read anything I’ve written about the Modern swing being very bad for the back and that I was predicting back issues for Tiger as early as 2011 (his first back surgery came in 2014) and if you don’t believe me about the knee, then Tiger himself will tell you, as he did in an interview published by Express in the UK back in 2017:
“People ask me, ‘Why don’t you go back to your 2000 swing?’ I can’t, because my knee is trashed from all those years of playing that way,” Woods said on a podcast with Geno Auriemma.
Tiger’s own words, not mine.
And remember, that was the swing model with which he won the Tiger Slam and 8 of his 15 majors (more than half) working with Butch Harmon, who later expressed doubts about the Modern Golf Swing:
Another thing that annoys me is the prevailing sentiment among Modern Golf Swing instructors that “the golf swing will cause injuries, it’s the nature of the sport,” because that is absolute garbage.
In the Classic Golf Swing era, you rarely heard about back injuries – the first back injury I can actually recall hearing about was to Fred Couples, who was among the first Modern Golf Swing practitioners, back in the early 90’s.
Before that, I’d have to go back to Bobby Jones having to quit playing golf due to a degenerative back condition that had nothing to do with his golf swing.
I don’t remember Sam Snead, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Arnold Palmer or any other of the greatest major winners every complaining of back or knee issues, but I will admit there may be someone, I just can’t recall.
No one swung harder than Jack, either:
Jack Nicklaus, the greatest major winner and who smashed the golf ball prodigious distances, played in every major between 1962-1998.
That is 36 years of professional golf without missing a major.
I would bet you that it would have something to do with the way they all swung a golf club back then.
So, Jack Nicklaus will remain for the foreseeable future the greatest major winner in professional golf, and largely due to the way he swung.
Tiger Woods will fall short largely because of the golf swing injuries he incurred during his career.
Say what you want about Tiger being the greatest – had he learned a proper and mechanically-sound golf swing, there wouldn’t even be any debate about who the greatest is.
WAX Golf 