Comparing The Competition

Daniel Wexler takes on the tricky task of comparing the quality of Tiger's primary competition vs. Jack's in an ESPN.com piece.

I thought this was interesting from Al Barkow:

 "The players giving Tiger his competition are just as good as those who Jack faced in terms of pure talent, but they don't have the heart, the guts, the tenacity, maybe even the sense of pride that the [Tom] Watsons and [Lee] Trevinos had."

Why, one wonders, would such things be lacking?

"It has to do with money," Barkow continues, "although no one likes to say that. But today's players are so rich they don't have the real need for money the previous generation had, and are also so incredibly pampered and spoiled from the day they took up the game that they don't know how to respond to the dominant player. Watson, Trevino et al, gave Jack a good go and took him a few times head-to-head. I can't see anyone out there today giving Tiger that sort of competition. They don't need to."