Tiger Woods: In an Era of Falling Stars, Tiger Shines the Brightest

Many legendary athletes are watching their careers come to a close, but Tiger Woods’ impact on golf was the greatest of them all.

While there are plenty of exciting things happening in the world of sports right now, it’s also kind of a sad time to be a sports fan. Personally, some of the legendary athletes I grew up watching are getting ready to call it quits.

In 2014, baseball fans watched the Derek Jeter Farewell Tour visit ballparks across the nation, as the Yankees shortstop called it quits after 20 seasons in MLB. Battling injuries on the declining years of his career, Jeter knew it was time to hang up the cleats and reflect on his illustrious career.

2015 has seen a similar trend of athletes’ careers coming to a close. In the NHL, Jaromir Jagr came out of retirement at the age of 43 and recently moved into fourth place on the all-time goals list.

Moving over to the racetrack, Jeff Gordon’s incredible 24-year career made it’s final turn as he’s made the decision to retire and head to the broadcast booth.

On the hardcourt, Serena Williams only has a few years remaining playing competitive tennis, but she continues to add to her trophy collection as a 34-year old in a sport being taken over by 20-somethings.

And then there’s Kobe Bryant and Peyton Manning. Both considered all-time greats in their respective sports, but struggling in their final years playing in the NBA and NFL.

All of the names previously listed have two things in common: they’re legends at their sports and their time has come to a close. Each individual has piled on a lifetime of achievements and all of them together is overwhelming to even think about.

However, none of these stars are as bright as Tiger Woods. 

No disrespect to these other athletes, but what they’ve accomplished within their sport doesn’t compare to Tiger’s achievements.

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What Big Cat has done throughout his career in enough to trump the competition. 79 wins and 14 majors in his 20-year career is impressive enough, but that doesn’t begin to describe his impact on the game of golf.

Woods simply destroyed the competition for a solid 10 years. During that span, there wasn’t anyone close to being as good as him. There were two stretches between 1999 and 2010 where he was the number one player in the world for 264 straight weeks and 281 straight weeks.

Pretty spectacular, but that’s not even his biggest achievement. Tiger accomplished all of this with everyone against him. He was a black kid playing a white man’s sport. He wasn’t welcome at the country clubs and was one of the only African American playing the game.

If you really want to get a better understanding of what he went through, watch this interview with a 14-year-old Tiger Woods talking about racism in the game.

Not only did Woods dominate the game of golf for nearly a decade, but he overcame the ugly faces of racism while doing so. It’s hard enough to win in an individual sport because there isn’t a team element for you to rely on, but throwing more adversity in his way still didn’t deter Tiger. It speaks volumes about his mentality and competitive edge.

To get a better understanding of milestones, let’s take a look at how Kobe and Peyton stack up to Tiger.

Tiger Woods

• 106 Professional Wins
  • 79 PGA TOUR (2nd All Time)
  • 14 Majors (2nd All Time)
• 1996 Rookie of the Year
• 11x PGA TOUR Player of the Year
• 10x Money List Leader
• 9x Vardon Trophy Winner (scoring average)
• 2x FedEx Cup Champion

Peyton Manning

• Super Bowl Champion
• Super Bowl MVP
• 14x Pro Bowler
• 7x First-Team All-Pro
• NFL 2000s All-Decade Team
• 3x AFC Champion
• 5x AP NFL MVP
• AP NFL Comeback Player of the Year

Kobe Byrant

• 5x NBA Champion
• 2x NBA Finals MVP
• NBA MVP
• 17x NBA All-Star
• 11x All-NBA First Team
• 9x NBA All-Defensive First Team
• 2x NBA Scoring Champion
• Los Angeles Lakers All-Time Leading Scorer

This is a pretty incredible list of milestones for all of these athletes and impressive in their own right, but let’s remember that Tiger didn’t have a Shaquille O’Neal to help get him birdies or a Reggie Wayne to rely on.

Next: Tiger Woods: 30 Best Wins of His Career

It’s sad to see the careers of all these athletes come to a close, but they certainly did provide fans with plenty of memorable experiences. The young guns of today have some big shoes to fill.