ShareThisJust to keep from getting carried away, let's remind Tiger Woods that he has not won a Masters in three years, or won one in his 30s or since he has become a father. And here's a statistic you won't find anywhere else: only twice when Easter occurs in March.Hunting for reasons to doubt Tiger Woods is getting harder to come by, as are challengers, each slinking back into the crowd as the Tiger parade goes merrily by.The only way Woods can make news these days is to lose, and he has not done that in seven months.There ought to be a standing headline, not "Tiger Wins'' but "Tiger Blows One'' or "Tiger Is Almost Human.''In no other sport at any other time has one man been as dominant as has Woods in golf. Dominance not only in the present but against history, and smothering the future as well.Whether this is good for golf, it is certainly good for Woods.He is golf's savior in the big picture, the clear and obvious eye magnet of the game, the crowd pet and ratings booster, but he is also a tournament killer, as we know around here, his reluctance to play in The International dooming one of the best events in sports.Those tournaments he anoints preen with pleasure and those he does not offer apologies and try to smile when they hand the trophy to someone whose chief flaw is that he is not Tiger.Woods' winning has become so redundant it is uninspiring, unbeaten since last September in Boston when he finished second to Phil Mickelson, five PGA tournament wins in row, with routs this season such as eight strokes at the Buick in San Diego (site of the U.S. Open in June) and an 8-and-7 win at the world match play.Nothing quite like Sunday's spectacular birdie putt on the last hole to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Orlando, but it is almost as if he needs to edit the script of his own life with ever more and more dramatics.Bobby Jones once told Jack Nicklaus that Nicklaus played a game with which he was unfamiliar. Had Jones seen Woods, he could only have been speechless.Nicklaus holds the record most definable for the greatest golfer, the number of major wins at 18. But Nicklaus himself has conceded that Woods will get there. When? As Nicklaus said, do the math.Averaging more than one major a year -- 13 in 11 years -- Woods will likely get there in five years and will be only 37 years old. Nicklaus won his last major at 46.The question now is not so much when will Woods lose but if he will lose again. He plays this week in Miami at Doral, where he is the defending champion, and then not until the Masters.If he were to win both of those, to get to eight in a row, he would start a dispute only Woods is capable of doing. When he won the four majors in a row, not all the same year, purists and wet blankets refused to give him a Grand Slam.Were Woods to get to 11 in a row, to match Byron Nelson's PGA record for consecutive wins, the same problem would be there, since three of those are from last season.As his Slam became the Tiger Slam, so would this become his Tiger Streak, and not inappropriately, since almost all things golf are Tiger something or other.If all of this seems premature, as well as the usual discussion of winning all the majors the "right" way, it is Woods who is to blame. He has raised expectations beyond any athlete since at least Lance Armstrong and his dominance of the Tour de France.Armstrong, however, raced only one race, really, and all this preparation was for it, while Woods does agree to knock the ball around at minor venues.Who, then, can compare with Woods?Michael Jordan towered over basketball but not in the way Woods does in golf. Jordan had teammates to help him while Woods is alone against not just one team but 140 or so.Woods' closest comparison might be Roger Federer in tennis, though Federer has slipped of late and a tennis career is roughly a third that of golf. Rocky Marciano was undefeated as a boxer. Muhammad Ali became the most famous athlete in the world, as Woods certainly must be now.The truth is, Woods can only be compared with himself -- for now and for a long time to come. (Contact Bernie Lincicome at lincicomeb@rockymountainnews.com.)(Bernie Lincicome writes for the Rocky Mountain News at www.rockymountainnews.com.)
Tiger unveils unseen domination
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