As readers and listeners will know, I’m a huge Tiger Woods fan. I’m a kid-like fan simply overawed at what I see. I’m by no means the first to say that I feel blessed to have seen this sort of an athlete in my lifetime.

As I watched the last round of the Fedex – I had missed the other rounds – I was astonished that no announcer seemed to be talking about the $10,000,000 prize. It soon became obvious – that had already been decided when Tiger won last week. It would have taken a miracle for anyone to catch him.

I, like any Tiger fan, was concerned the way he played the first three or four holes but I was struck by the lesson. No matter what he’s just done, Tiger plays every shot as if it was an entirely new game, which of course it is. The great Bobby Jones – whose home course was the very same Eastlake – once said that golf was a game of inches – the six inches between your ears. And it was there to see. Witness the startling contrast between Tiger and Sergio Garcia. Quite apart from the fundamental flaw in the start of Garcia’s downswing – this old driving range pro could fix him quickly – Garcia cannot bring himself “into the present” after a bad shot or a missed putt. He does amazingly well considering that he has a flawed swing which will almost always let him down under pressure and that he has surrendered to his putter, making it his enemy not his friend as it is to Tiger.

There is another thing – did you notice the condition Tiger keeps himself in? He is the #1 athlete in the world because he keeps himself in shape to be.

It’s always hard to speculate as to who was the best of all time. The only thing you can be is the best of your own time. But when you consider the competition today where the European players consistently outplay the Americans at the Ryder Cup and the enormous outpouring of good young players each year the competition is demonstrably better than it was in Nicklaus’ era … or Hogan’s era … or in Jones’ era. There is simply no question about that. It must be said, then, that already Tiger Woods has a pretty decent claim to being the best ever.

I can tell you this – this old former low handicap player and teaching pro has never seen anything like it. And I feel blessed to have lived long enough to see this stand alone giant towering over all he competes with.