Quite a few similar predictions about Tiger: he'll be good, but not great.
Looking at the rest of the golfing universe,
who is great right now?
I'd argue no one - at least at the moment. Oh, we expect Rory to be great. We think Ryo might be. There is a huge stable of talented under 30 golfers. But so far, when you look at their accomplishments, they're all good...but not great. For pete's sake, Luke Donald is still #1.
Since Tiger won the 2008 U.S. Open while playing with a broken leg and a torn ACL, the major winners with multiple titles:
Harrington defended his 2007 Open Championship, and then won the 2008 PGA. Nothing of note since, not the same player.
Angel Cabrera won his 2nd major (2009 Masters). Love the guy, but come on.
Mickelson won his fourth major (2010 Masters), his first GS win in four years. Might win another major, but I have my doubts.
Who is going to step up and be great? Go all the way back to the Open Championship 2001, and
every other major than the four guys mentioned above are first time major wins who still have one career major.
[*]Duval, Toms (2001) - neither one of these guys will ever win another
[*]Beem (2002) - the very definition of a fluke
[*]Weir, Furyk, Curtis, Micheel (2003) - obvs the US Open win gets much respect, but the other three are weak champs who never threatened to win again
[*]Hamilton (2004) - good lawd
[*]Campbell (2005) - completely lost his game afterward
[*]Ogilvy (2006) - has def played well at times since, still a threat IMO
[*]Johnson (2007) - watching corn grow is more fun than this guy
[*]Immelman (2008) - pretty sure he's from the South African equivalent of Iowa
[*]Glover, Cink, Yang (2009) - any reason to think one of these three breaks the pattern?
[*]McDowell, Oosthuizen, Kaymer (2010) - probably too early to say; Kaymer def has a shot at being an all-time great, very talented
[*]Schwartzel, McIlroy, Clarke, Bradley (2011) - Rory should have a great career, put Schwartzel in the too early to tell category with Oosthuizen, and Clarke is gonna ride off into the sunset a career one-timer. I like Keegan, but let's wait and see.
If Tiger stays healthy, he is going to break Jack's record. The reason is there simply aren't enough great golfers to stop him. There are a lot of good ones, but that's it - other than Rory, none of the youngsters impress me as being truly special. Agree with others he needs stability, but I think he gets it figured out and gets back on track.