The Clutch

After Tiger Wood's dominating Sunday performance this week, it got me thinking the same sort of questions a lot of other pundits have been thinking lately: Who is the best big-time performer in sports history?

By big time, I don't mean big name players or even championship players. I'm talking about guys who you KNOW will pull it off when it counts. Guys who leave you in shock and awe when they miss, not when they make. Clutch performers.

There's Michael Jordan, whose litany of buzzer beating shots and six NBA Finals MVPs to go along with his six NBA championships certainly put him high up on the list. But before he won any of his trophies, his team lost in the conference finals two years in a row. Not a black mark on a career, but a sign that it took him a few tries before he reached his pinnacle.

There's Wayne Gretzky, who though he had transcendent talent, was never particularly known as a 'clutch player'. His Stanley Cup rings and virtual takeover of the NHL record book are not to be slighted in the least bit, but Gretzky always played on excellent teams and therefore wasn't always expected to carry the full load and pull it out in the clutch. In fact, there was often no 'clutch moment' for his Oilers in the '80s since the teams were so good in the first place.

His one shining moment (if you can pinpoint just one) came in game seven of the 1993 conference finals (a game I remember, well, not so fondly...) when he scored a hat trick in Toronto to eliminate the Maple Leafs and send the Kings to the Stanley Cup Final. He still calls that his greatest NHL game ever.
But, L.A lost in the Final to the Montreal Canadiens in what many regard as still the prime of Gretzky's career. In that instance, The Great One couldn't close the deal.

There's Joe Montana, or as he was called, 'Joe Cool'. Montana's four Super Bowls rings and three Super Bowl MVP's as well as his penchant for late game heroics are legendary. Montana's throw to tight end Dwight Clark in the back of the endzone, throwing off his back foot, with three defenders on him, in the waning moments of the NFC Championship game versus Dallas, or 'The Catch' as it's lovingly referred to, is the stuff legends are made of. A more appropriate title would be 'The Throw'.
When people compare Tom Brady to Montana, they do so hoping that one day can compile a record as impressive as his. Brady can, but it's still to be seen if he will. Brady had a chance to match Joe Cool's record of four Super Bowl wins in 2008, but lost to the Giants in the final game of what could have been a perfect season.

But in my mind, the argument begins and ends with Tiger.
To go along with his 29% career winning average (think of that like the Habs winning a Stanley Cup every three years...if there were 100 teams in the NHL to compete against every season), Woods record in the clutch and in big time events is unheard of.

Woods hit the ground running by winning the first Masters he played in as a pro in 1997 by 12 shots. The learning curve, what learning curve?

Woods also, since he turned pro 14 seasons ago has compiled 66 victories, third all-time and only seven behind Jack Nicklaus, who by the way, took 25 years to reach his total. In fact, if you check the list of all-time victories, not only is Tiger already third on it, but the next player to have compiled a similar amount of W's in the same time span is Horton Smith who won "just" 32 tournaments in 14 years on tour.

The four Majors, the measuring stick with which all great golfers are tested, have become Tiger's plaything. He has 14, only four behind Jack Nicklaus' record once thought impossible to break. Nicklaus won his final major at the age of 46. Tiger won his 14th before he turned 33.

Tiger is the only golfer in the modern era to own all four major trophies at once, winning the US Open, British Open, PGA Championship and Masters in a row for what has become known as The Tiger Slam.
And when one writer wrote last month that he could equal Nicklaus' mark of 18 with the grand slam this year, he wrote it with no tongue in cheek and people actually believed it!

Tiger not only wins, but he doesn't seem to lose either. His record in playoffs is 15-2, his record when entering the Sunday of a major with at least a share of the lead is, you guessed it, 14 for 14. And he can come from behind also. Just last week he made up a five-shot difference on Sunday to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the second time he's come back from five on the final day of a tournament.

He also owns a record of 1-0 when it comes to winning the US Open with two broken bones in his leg and a torn ACL, while needing a long birdie putt on the 18th on Sunday to force an 18-hole playoff the next day, which he also birdied to win.

When you watch Tiger on TV, (which you certainly do; this week's tournament had higher viewership ratings than any other since Tiger's knee injury last July, including the two majors he missed, the British Open and the PGA Championship) you simply get the feeling that he can't and won't lose. When he stands over a putt he needs to make, he makes it. This week alone he was perfect from 15 feet and in. The announcers must have mentioned half a dozen separate times how he was the greatest par-putter in the history of golf.

You could spend hours watching countless shots Tiger has drained in the clutch and I defy you to find a putt Tiger has had to win a tournament that he missed. I'm sure it's happened once or twice, but heck, I can't remember when.

You know the saying, 'drive for show, putt for dough'? Well, Tiger Woods has plenty of 'show' and 'dough' to go around.

He, more than anyone else in history, more than Jordan, more than Gretzky and more than Montana, elicits a sense of fear in his opponents and a sense of confidence in himself that any shot he needs to make, he will make. I find myself watching him before an impossible shot and even before he hits it I think I will be more surprised if it doesn't go in than if it does...It usually does.

We are not surprised anymore by his greatness. We know he will be, if not already is, the greatest golfer, if not athlete, of all time. We are simply in awe of everything he has done and everything he continues to do.

Forget the fist pumps, forget the hundreds of millions of dollars he counts as his own, forget the inspirational story of a black golfer being brought up in a society that disallowed him from playing in some of the countries pre-eminent courses. For his volume of work alone, Tiger is the greatest clutch performer in sports history.