Tiger Woods: Azinger “wouldn’t be surprised” to see him reach 100 PGA TOUR wins

Expectations for Tiger Woods are as high as they’ve been in more than five years, and one veteran Tour player turned broadcaster thinks he could even take it further.

Paul Azinger is in Hawaii for the telecast of the Sentry Tournament of Champions. On Wednesday he and Mark Rolfing were asked by media if they thought Tiger Woods had a chance to get to 100 PGA Tour victories and Azinger replied, “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Because of the way Woods played at the ZOZO and then as playing captain at the Presidents Cup, most in golf say that while he might not be the Tiger of 2000, he’s still formidable.

“Vijay pulled off 20-something in his 40s,” Azinger noted about Singh’s late career victory run (although most of them were before he turned 44).

"“And another dynamic I think you have to watch for is we were all scared to death of Tiger in some capacity. These guys are scared in a different way. Do they idolize him to a fault? That’s the question.”"

Azinger thinks some do.  He thinks it’s a barrier for some to beating Woods, even though Woods might be more vulnerable now than he was 20 years ago.

“How are you going to take a guy down that you idolize? It makes it hard,” Azinger concluded.

Rolfing disagrees with Azinger on the possibility of 100 tournament victories for Woods. He thinks it’s so hard to win tournaments now that it is going to be very hard for Woods to get to the century mark.

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“Winning is such a combination of things falling in the right place for you. It’s going to be hard to be a dominant player,”  Rolfing said.

"“Take a look at this field. There’s a player in this field who played 19 tournaments and made three cuts. There’s a couple guys who had five, six, seven missed cuts in a row streaks during their year.”"

And yet those players won, or they wouldn’t be at the Sentry.

Azinger just thinks Woods is still the man to beat and remains the biggest story for 2020.

“My statement basically about him at the Presidents Cup is I think it’s the best he’s ever swung,” Azinger noted. “He’s got great rhythm, is good on the finesse shots. He can hit wedges again. He’s not yipping his chips.”

Woods needs one victory to get ahead of Snead, according to the current total for victories.  Depending on which historic source you want to use, you could make a case for him being a lot ahead of Snead by now, or still behind Snead. But the current PGA Tour number has him tied with Snead at 82 PGA Tour victories.

The biggest question, Azinger thinks, is whether Woods can catch Jack Nicklaus in major titles, and because of that he says, “Tiger intrigues me more than anything.”

It certainly is possible for Tiger Woods to catch and surpass Nicklaus. In fact, he might be able to do it within the next two seasons.

In terms of other players to watch, Rolfing said to keep an eye on Dustin Johnson.

“He got here Thursday, Friday morning, 7 a.m. Saturday morning, 7 a.m. Sunday morning, 7 a.m. He’s hungry,” Rolfing noted. “He is way more dialed in.”

For this week, Azinger likes Brooks Kopeka, Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm.

“Koepka looks at the field like there’s only 10-20 guys that can step up to him,” he said, adding that he likes Koepka because he does what he has to do to win.

Azinger said McIlroy seems to look like it doesn’t make any difference to him if he’s winning or not winning.

“I love watching him play because he’s a fascinating player, and you never know what he can do,” Azinger added.  He’s also enthusiastic about Jon Rahm.

Rolfing shared Azinger’s optimism on Rahm. “I do think Rahm could be the No. 1 player in the world,” he predicted.