Tiger Woods could possibly be the greatest golfer that ever lived. At 30 years old he is only 6 majors away from Jack Nickalus who has 18. He's doing it faster than the Golden Bear could have ever dreamed of. The only major that he has ever missed the cut in (this year's US Open) almost lit a fire in Tiger; he has since won the next two majors (British Open, PGA Championship). However, I've heard a lot of people today trying to say that he could possibly be the best athlete ever. I'm not saying that he couldn't be, I'm just saying that we'll never know.

1. Tiger Plays an Individual Sport
How can we EVER compare an individual to a team. Tiger is the only one out there. If he has a bad day, he's the only one that suffers. If you are the star of your team, you either need to rely on other players to help or suffer the consequences. He has never had help, but he also hasn't had to work with multiple players to achive a common goal. Think about it, if all Michael Jordan had to do was play people 1 on 1, he would have won a lot more than he already had.

2. Golf is NOT a Contact Sport
Tiger never had to shoot a jumper with the game on the line while someone was fouling him. He never had to rush through the defense for a game winning touchdown run, or throw the touchdown pass while someone was tacking him. Tiger has never been slashed while skating on a breakaway and has never been hit by a 90 mile an hour fastball. All he's had to do is hit a golf ball (which believe me is hard... I golf. We all know how it is). But he's never had anyone legitimately challenge him. Golf is not a sport where someone else's play could effect your play. The only one on the course he has to worry about is himself. No one is going to be tackling him while he's hitting his 2nd shot on the 11th. The amount of pressure put on a golfer is not half as much as the pressure that someone is in when they're trying to find a reciever while standing in the pocket with a left tackle who has a knee injury. You don't know who might come and blindside you. Is it a Defensive End? Is it a Linebacker? Is it a Safety? Oh wait, here comes Phil Mickleson's Caddie... OUCH! What a hit! Tiger is down for the count and his approach shot only went 20 yards.
Even other individual sports like Boxing and the very popular Mixed Martial Arts like the UFC rely on one person competing against another in battle. I used to wrestle. I knew that my match depended on what the other person did and how I reacted to it. The only thing Tiger has to react to is the course.

3. The Greatest Athletes Weren't Golfers and We Don't Know What Else Tiger Can Do
We don't know what other players could have done if they had golfed instead of doing what they did. What if with practice MJ could have challenged Tiger. What if Teddy Ballgame's swing translated perfectly on the golf course as well? How would Tiger fare bottom of the 9th, full count, bases loaded, down by two? Could he hit the base hit to send in the tying run? We'll never know. I've never been too big on comparing athletes from other sports. Think of track and field... If you look at some of the 40 times of NFL athletes, don't you think that some of them would have been great sprinters? I do... But they chose to play in the NFL so we'll never know. A great athlete pretty much has their choice to play whatever sport they want (unless you're MJ trying to play baseball), but what makes us think that they couldn't have been great athletes in other sports as well. Yes this argument could play towards Tiger's favor, but the point I'm trying to make is that Tiger didn't play another sport, MJ didn't play another sport, Jim Brown didn't play another sport. Barry Sanders played football and did not run track. Michael Vick is the quarterback of the Falcons not the sprinter in the 100 yard dash.

I'm not trying to downplay the greatness that is Tiger Woods. I'm just saying that we can only speculate to his greatness in other sports arenas. Could you picture Tiger kicking the winning penalty kick in the World Cup? Tiger is in a league of his own, an athlete amongst a sport that has many of its elite with beer bellies. How can one measure the two? Tiger isn't running, hitting, kicking, punching, grappling... There's no blood in golf (unless you happen to trip coming out of a sandtrap). Until I see the greatest athletes compete in a wide variety of games (kind of like the olympics), I will never know for sure. I will say that I believe that Tiger will go down as the greatest golfer ever, but not the greatest athlete. Just like I believe that MJ will go down as the greatest basketball player ever, but not the greatest athlete.