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Tuesday, April 23, 2002

Now that he has won the Masters again, and an historic calendar-year grand slam is within his reach, there are people out there, well-respected people, claiming that Tiger Woods is the best athlete on the planet.

Excuse me, while I convulse with laughter.

These people are confusing dominance with athleticism. There's plenty of evidence to make the case that Woods is the most dominant athlete in the world. But look who he's dominating -- other golfers.

This is not to suggest golfers are not athletes. They are. Any game that requires coordination -- and that's certainly a prerequisite of a golf swing -- requires athleticism. Woods dominance of golf is such that he's more than just an athlete, he's an excellent athlete.

But to submit that this puts him in the same class as Barry Bonds or Alex Rodriguez or Allen Iverson or Kobe Bryant or Marshall Faulk or dozens of other competitors in major sports is preposterous.

All sports are not created equal when it comes to athletic requirements. Some sports demand a high level of athletic ability. Others, not much at all. Golf is one of those sports. In fact, the only sport that comes to mind that requires less athletic ability than golf is bowling.

The primary skill in golf is hitting the ball -- sometimes for distance, sometimes for accuracy. As many weekend golfers can attest, this is not always easy.

But compare it to the other two majors sports -- baseball and tennis -- where a similar skill is important. In golf, the ball is stationary, making it far easier to hit and requiring far less athletic skill to do so.

By comparison, a baseball player must hit a ball frequently traveling at 90 mph or more -- and often not in a straight line. A tennis player is required to return a ball traveling at upwards of 100 mph and often while on the move. Both the actions of the baseball player and the tennis player require more athletic skill than those of the golfer.

But the difference level of athleticism between golfers and participants in most other sports is far more than that.

A golfer has no in-your-face opponent. He has all the time he wants to hit the motionless ball. To make the task even easier, the crowd becomes silent as the ball is addressed. There are no distractions for a golfer.

Compare that to a basketball player, who has a defender dogging his every step. Not only must he fulfill his primary goal, putting the ball in the basket, he must do it with another competitor trying just as hard to stop him.

Golf is missing one of the most important elements of athletic competition. There is no defense in golf -- at least not defense by another person. This considerably reduces the difficulty of the task at hand.

Golf is baseball off a batting tee. Golf is the basketball played as a game of H-O-R-S-E.

Most sports are man or woman against man or woman. Golf is man or woman against ball. It's not even close.

There's no widely accepted definition for athleticism. But a trait greatly in demand by almost every sport is quickness. More than flat-out speed, the ability to move a couple of steps faster than your opponent is greatly coveted.

But there is no quickness requirement in golf. The ability to move from one spot to another, so in demand in most sports, is inconsequential in golf. This is one of the reasons why men in their 40s, rare in baseball and virtually unheard of in football, basketball, hockey, tennis, soccer, swimming, track, etc., can be competitive in golf.

Not only is quickness not necessary in golf, neither is its first cousin, speed. Nor is leaping ability, another element of athleticism that is cherished in most sports, a factor in golf.

Strength factors into golf somewhat in that it can equate to hitting the ball a longer distance. But if strength was truly important, the golfers would be hitting the weight rooms and we would see it in their bodies.

It's not necessarily easy to walk 18 holes of golf, but it hardly requires the stamina of, say, playing 20 to 25 minutes of NHL hockey.

Woods is a fabulous golfer, destined to be the greatest of all time. He's also a charismatic person who possesses many of the intangibles of a great athlete. But he's a golfer and as such can't even be considered among the best athletes in the world.

Bob Smizik can be reached at bsmizik@post-gazette.com.