Forget all of the major wins. Forget the millions of dollars, the endorsements, and the WTF? moments that he has created on the golf course. Tiger Woods is the greatest athlete of all time, across all sports, in the history of professional sports.
Period.
Bill Russell is the quintessential champion. Babe Ruth popularized his sport. Muhammad Ali used sport to define culture, and Wayne Gretzky was far and away the best his sport has ever seen.
To and through golf, Tiger Woods has done and is doing each of those things.
Adversity is what makes sports worth watching, and Tiger has surpassed two of the toughest mountains in sports to climb. The death of his father in 2006 led to an unprecedented run of tour success, wining three tournaments including the PGA Championship. With a win today, it will mark an impressive comeback from knee surgery just two months ago.
And Tiger does all of this with no coach to motivate him, no teammates to lift him up, and no home court or home field advantage. He’s all by his lonesome, making his own sports history look that easy, and that enjoyable.
And talk about marketability? A lot of people were watching basketball before Michael Jordan. A lot of people enjoyed boxing before Mike Tyson. Tiger Woods has forced golf to become more than a brain fart within the American sports mentality.
Very few people embody the athletic dominance, commercial allure and cultural appeal that Tiger Woods does. Chances are, nobody else ever will. If that ain’t the greatest, I don’t know what is.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
It is hard to think the best athlete in the world has an adams apple where his bicept should be.
Greatest athlete? Give me a break. If you want a true ‘athlete’, give me a guy like Herschel Walker.
Walker is 46 years old now and I would still put my money on him against Tiger in ANY sport outside of golf (if you consider golf a ’sport’).
Dave Winfield got drafted in baseball, basketball, and football.
Calling a golfer the greatest athlete in the world is a slap in the face of guys like that.
So Tiger is not an athlete because he does not run and jump for his sport? Please.
For all of the physical talents that the above mentioned athletes possessed, prove to me that they were as good at their sports as Tiger is at golf.
you’re an idiot..
golf sucks…MJ’s da greatest
Golf is a game of skill. It is not a sport. Tiger woods is a great golfer. Tiger woods is not an athlete.
Phil Mickelson has man tits. You call that fuck an athlete??!!
What nonsense. Golf is a silly game played by silly men who cannot play any other game. It is not a sport and golfer are not athletes. This blog is a disgrace.
You’re absolutely right. Sports where you willingly try to hurt others through tackling and hitting, or kicking a ball through a net, or throwing a round ball through a hoop?
Now that’s the real deal.
Tiger Woods is the greatest golfer of all time but as far as greatest athlete of all time? Not even top 10. No disrespect to Tiger Woods, I am a big fan of his, but I have no respect for anyone suggesting that a golfer is the top athlete of all time.
What you have respect for and what is true are two different topics. What is an athlete to you? Running and jumping? Throwing or kicking?
Or could it be that athleticism is the ability to physically achieve a goal in the face of established obstacles?
Get over the fact that he’s not being tackled or defended, and recognize that his focus and training are just like any other person’s playing any other sport.