That "next guy" to challenge Tiger and the other all-time greats is coming

[JD3]

I don't know who it will be, even if it's someone we're currently talking about or an unknown. But soon I think we will see a name emerge that will rank amongst the all-time greats like Nicklaus, Jones, and Hogan (along w/ Tiger my picks for "all-time top 4"). I say this because their careers have a tendency of overlapping when the "guy" they're challenging is nearing the end of his competitive career like when Nicklaus (still an amateur) and Hogan (then 47) were locked in battle along with Palmer atop the 1960 US Open leaderboard.

[Lark]

Maybe but I would be surprised. None of the top young guys playing today are close to what Tiger was. And Tiger and Jack didn't really overlap.

[BC33]

Wasn't that guy supposed to be Cameron Champ?

[ChillyDipper]

Until 2017, I thought this was going to be YJS. Still could be, but i doubt it now.

[Smada962]

I see people say this occasionally, but I don't recall anyone saying that about Champ, just that he was prodigiously long.

[JD3]

It certainly could be one of the bombers -- I think other than Hogan, that Jones, Nicklaus, and Woods were all just about the longest of their era when they emerged

[J13]

It's not going to happen. Tiger is the greatest player in the history of the sport and no one in the ranks is even close to him whether it's college or pro. Understand he was a golf genius since birth and won the US AM 3 years in a row. Anyone doing that? There isn't even anyone in the junior ranks (middle and high school) that is making waves like that.

[Newgs]

It was also supposed to be Rory at one point...

[bscinstnct]

Show me a 2 year old with an ex-green beret father teaching him the game from the green back to the tee

 

And there he is ; )

[elwhippy]

Someone will sneak in under the radar. But they will need to be hungry. Really hungry. Guys can run up a few top 10s in the right events and be millionaires. We have seen it in the women's game but Asia is really not putting out any male stand outs. Problem is a lot come from very affluent families so they aren't worrying about hotel bills or scraping a cheap flight. Jack turned Pro in 1962 (I think), Tiger was 1996. A gap of 34 years. 2030 might be a vintage year.....

[BC33]

I was being somewhat facetious with this. I don't think we'll ever see a player to challenge Tiger and Jack's records in this generation. Just as there's been a few guys have had a great or even historic season such as Spieth in '15 and Koepka in 18-19, no one has been able to sustain like Tiger has winning a Major 20 plus years after winning his first.

 

Could Spieth find it again? Sure, but chances are and given his recent results not likely. Koepka could be a guy who ends up with a couple more Majors but he also could just end up fading away into the sunset.

[BDowning]

Now a days, you hear about all the top studs coming up because of our access to college golf now a days. DeChambeau, Patrick Rodgers, Adam Aaron Wise, and more recently Colin Morikowa, Wolff, and Hovland. All amazing golfers...none can sniff TW and that upper tier of golfers...even Bryson, who has yet to sniff a major. I'm happy to see so many good golfers now a days, but I think it's harder then ever to win at the top level right now. That only makes TW and the fact he's still winning and consistently in the top 10 even more impressive.

[gvogel]

Wait about 10 years. Hope I'm still around.

[JD3]

they were saying the same thing pre-Tiger about Nicklaus and his record -- as good as Norman, Faldo. Seve and some other multiple major winners were at the time, no one saw them as serious challengers to Nicklaus' record, iirc it wasnt even mentioned

[Brock Savage]

Jack published an autobiography in 1997 that included an assessment of Tiger. Tiger had won some PGA events, but hadn't yet won the Masters. Jack made some very generous comments about Tiger's potential, and said he might have an "awesome" impact on the game. But in the same book, he said he thought nobody would ever dominate the game again, because the purses had gotten so large that the competition was too tough for any one player to win very often. He said that in any field -- business, sport, etc. --- big money always made the competition more fierce, and he thought that the players were so much better that the 1996 middle of the pack players were as good as the top players of his day.

Well, he underestimated Tiger, but I don't think he was wrong in general. And I think the fields will continue to improve, and that it will be increasingly difficult for anyone to dominate like Tiger did. More importantly, the next revolution in golf is coming. There was a revolution in golf around 1980, when golfers from mainland Europe, southern Africa, and Oz-NZ started playing majors and PGA events in ever increasing numbers, which is why I think it's obvious that the fields after 1980 were a quantum leap above those before. Since 1990, the fields have continued to get stronger, but only incrementally. The same countries are producing better schooled golfers who are more athletic and who are ready to win much earlier than used to be the norm, but it's still the same countries.

That is bound to end in the near future. There are hardly any Russian, Chinese, or Indian golfers in the majors or on the PGA tour. With golf in the Olympics, those countries will start gearing up their golf programs, and that will be the next revolution in pro golf. When you think of the impact that golfers from South Korea, a tiny country, have had on the LPGA, you can imagine the impact that an untapped 3 billion people might have.

When that happens, the competition will be incredibly tough. The best golfer who ever lived will very likely be playing, but he might win only 8 or 9 majors.

[Darth Putter]

I just hope he this new chosen one doesn't try to bring balance to the force. That never goes well.

[Lark]

Hogan was among the longest hitters of his day, especially before his injuries from the car accident.

[Lark]

Jack has also said that the top players of his day were better than the top players of today.

[Shilgy]

The guy that is the next generational talent won’t care about the money aspect. Starting poor has very little to do with keeping the hunger when you have already become a superstar and all the wealth that comes with it.

[dlygrisse]

Whoever he is, he isn't on tour yet, or we would know who he is for sure. There are a lot of really good and talented players on tour, but none are all-time greats. Rory is potentially a top 25 or even higher if he wins a few more majors, but at this point I think we have seen his best golf already.

Whoever he is, he will have a killer instinct, make tons of putts under pressure and he will be mentally tough and play better the bigger the pressure. That person is NOT on tour right now.

 

 

 

[dlygrisse]

Hogan's first book was Power Golf, because he was considered one of the longest hitters on tour. He was a small guy but could kill it, much like Rory does today.

[WristySwing]

Off the top of my head the closest have been DJ, Rory, Koepka, and Spieth. All have dominated for a spell, but never much more than about 12 months before they wavered. Arguably Vijay was probably the only one to successfully unseat Tiger, beating him when Woods was in his "prime" (whatever that means to him), winning 9 tournaments in a year, and the Masters in a span of 12-18 months if memory serves. The issue with Vijay was he was just too old, like O'Meara it was kind of a death rattle of golfing greatness before they disappeared off the leaderboards for good. Happened with Kenny Perry around 2012, Mickelson in 2019 (did he make a cut past his win at AT&T?), and now it seems like Spieth has permanently and steadily declining.

The list of "hot shots" the announcers in no particular order have labelled as the next Tiger killer have been numerous:

Charles Howell III, Ryan Moore, Rory, Hideki Matsuyama, Ryo Ishikawa, Jordan Spieth, Dustin, Justin Thomas, Adam Scott, Patrick Reed, Rickie Fowler, Tommy Fleetwood, Franceso Molinari, Justin Rose. And the list goes on. Many of these players are extremely solid week-in week-out but really don't have anywhere near the dominance Woods has/had. However many of them too are flashes in the pan that fizzled out as quickly as they arrived with a small handful of wins (if even that many) to their names and they haven't even so much as scared the first page of a leaderboard in recent memory.

[caniac6]

Tiger was dominant since he was a junior. I might be wrong, but I think he won 3 straight Junior Amateurs followed by 3 US Amateurs. I don't see anyone like that coming any time soon.

[Brock Savage]

Do you have a link for that?

[Brock Savage]

You are not wrong. That is likely a record that will never be broken, because you have to win your Junior Ams before you turn 18. And not even Bobby Jones, the greatest amateur of all time, won three US Ams in a row, even though he played them until he was 28.

Unless somebody did it recently, Tiger is the only player who has won both the Junior and US Am even once, let alone three each.

[Ashley Schaeffer]

I think that's right. Woods and Spieth are the only two who have ever won multiple US Juniors.

[Nard_S]

There is no "next guy" but there is a deep talent pool. Rory looks like he can add majors. Guys like Rahm, Fleetwood & Xavier are simmering to win one. Fowler winning one or more would be a huge. At some point Speith finds his form. And of course, Tiger is not done, he's going for Jack's record. So who really needs or cares about "next right" now.

[Gsea]

If there is he's in diapers now or not even born.

[Sean2]

At least one comes along every generation.

[bscinstnct]

If you see a 21 year old do this then win the Masters by 12 shots a couple of months later...

 

That would be a sign ; )