Tiger Woods hit his first tee shot at the Zozo Championship into the water then proceeded to make 3 straight bogeys. That’s how he opened the tournament that he would triumph in to give him the all-time PGA Tour record of 82 wins.
You could say he tied Sam Snead but a few of Snead’s wins were sketchy at best. Snead has some 18 and 36-hole tournaments counted as wins as well as team competitions. If Snead had a particularly good session on the range, he would count that as a PGA title. If he made a few 20-footers on the practice green, boom, another PGA title.
Tiger is well ahead of Slammin’ Sammy if you really dig into the numbers. Sam Snead was a great man though and had the sweetest swing in golf. He used to win bar bets by kicking the top of a door frame. He could do that well into his 80’s which is pretty damn amazing. He grew up in the backwoods of West Virginny (you have to say it like that) and in one obituary it says he would play in bare feet swinging golf clubs made of tree limbs.
I don’t believe that though.
You mean he had nothing better than tree limbs? Why do people feel the need to gild the lily concerning an amazing man’s life? I don’t care how poor he was, he could find a curtain rod or something better than a tree limb. Also, he caddied at The Homestead, a sweet country club, when he was 7 years old. You mean to tell me he couldn’t find any clubs lying around? Or not one wealthy club member would let him borrow some clubs?
These people are rich but they’re not evil.
They would have seen his bag of sticks and said, “Hey, young Sammy, put those sticks in the woodpile and you can borrow my 5 iron.” It’s like how people in this country talk about poor kids starving in America. There are no kids starving. Plenty of food to go around. It’s the opposite if anything. Poor kids are gorging. Nobody ever talks about the plight of poor kids gorging. Snead was a great guy though who was in the Navy during WW2. But this is about Tiger and his unequaled greatness.
Tiger put those 3 bogeys in his rear view and shot 64-64-66-67 to win the Zozo by 3 strokes.
You would think that the golf media would know never to count Tiger out no matter where or when he plays. You would be wrong. ESPN’s Bob Harig had a series of articles leading up to the Zozo about how Tiger wasn’t ready and would likely finish in the middle of the pack. Harig talked about Tiger’s focus being on golf-course design, Stanford football, US Open tennis, and not on practicing for this tournament. You would think the 15 majors and 81 PGA titles would give these guys some pause before they bury Tiger’s chances of winning but nope, they haven’t fully gathered that yet. I was a doubter once too but Tiger showed at Augusta in April that when he wants something, he makes it happen.
Tiger now has all the meaningful golf records except for the 18 majors held by Jack Nicklaus. Can he get there? Winning 3 majors in a career is a huge accomplishment for a golfer. Hale Irwin, Nick Price, Vijay Singh, and Padraig Harrington are all legendary golfers who have won 3 majors in their entire career. Asking Tiger to do that at the age of 43 seems impossible. But would you bet against him?
Dan Redmond covers Golf for Breitbart and can be found on twitter @danfromdc
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