Best of best: Tiger completely dominates WGC events
Is Tiger The Most Dominant Athlete Ever?
MARANA, Ariz. -- All of golf owes a hearty thanks to Tiger Woods, who helps make the game cool, enriches his peers through astronomical purses and gives the sport a higher profile in a crowded landscape.
But that gratitude should extend tenfold from those who run and administer the World Golf Championship events, another of whose trophies Woods will try to wedge onto a mantel someplace after his victory Sunday at the Accenture Match Play Championship.
These WGCs were an idea poached from Greg Norman, ostensibly with the idea of bringing the game's best together around the world on a more frequent basis. A decade later, the WGC events have some flaws, but all is well when Woods continues to win them.
If you are scoring at home, that is three straight WGCs, five of the last six and seven of the last 10.
He also has won four straight PGA Tour events and six of the last seven while winning five straight official tournaments around the world.
The game's No. 1 player continued his domination in record fashion, defeating Stewart Cink 8 and 7 in the 36-hole final at the Gallery Golf Club. It was his 15th victory in 26 WGC tournaments, an incredible success rate when you consider the fields typically are filled with no less than the top 50 players in the world rankings.
Take it further.
He has won 12 of 17 stroke-play WGCs, with his worst finish a ninth at the 2004 American Express Championship -- the year he won just once on the PGA Tour because of swing changes.
Counting both types of events, he has those 15 wins, plus two seconds, two fourths and two fifths. And he has won more than $19.8 million in the events (including another $1.35 million Sunday), a figure that by itself would put him 17th on the all-time PGA Tour money list.
"Well, it says about the same thing that just about any other stat that you can pull up says," Cink said. "It says he's the best that's ever played."
Yep, the WGC events have been good to Tiger.
And he certainly has been good to them.
Because where would these tournaments be without him?
Now in their 10th year, the WGCs are firmly anchored in the United States, a fact that rankles some of the world's best who do not call the U.S. home. The event now known as the CA Championship used to go overseas, but it is fixed in Miami for at least the next five years. The Match Play remains in Arizona, and the Bridgestone Invitational is played at Firestone in Ohio each year.
These events have turned into a big money grab, must-play tournaments for the game's elite because there is a guaranteed paycheck and numerous world ranking points are at stake.
But they do not feel like anything special, certainly not as good as a major championship and not close to the PGA Tour's flagship event, the Players Championship. And they tend to hurt rank-and-file PGA Tour events because there are so many "big" tournaments that the top-ranked players automatically pencil into their schedules, meaning they tend to skip the smaller ones.
"I don't see them moving forward," Australia's Adam Scott said earlier this week. "It's not different for the money. They're not playing them on great courses. It's just another event. They've lost some of the luster they once had."
Their credibility comes from Woods' winning them, giving attention to otherwise bloated events. In some respects, his 15 victories in WGC events is every bit as impressive as his 13 major titles. Certainly there is far more prestige and importance placed on the majors -- and the pressure is exponentially greater -- but an argument could be made that the competition in those tournaments is not as deep as that Woods faces in the WGC events.
Other than the PGA Championship -- which does invite 20 club pros -- none of the major championships attracts as strong a field as the Match Play Championship, CA Championship at Doral or Bridgestone Invitational. Yet Woods seems to treat these things as if they are junior tournaments with inferior competition.
In truth, Woods approaches them like the marquee tournaments he believes them to be.
"They are exactly what they were meant to be, and that's putting the best up against each other more often than just the four majors and the Players," Woods said. "I think that's why we as players and competitors love them, love the idea that we can go head-to-head more often. Most of the guys play in Europe or some other part of the world, and we don't get a chance to buck heads.
"All I know is I just love playing against the best players in the world. That's the fun part because we don't get to do it that often."
Aside from Woods, only Darren Clarke -- who won the 2000 Match Play over Woods in the final and the 2003 NEC (now Bridgestone) -- has captured more than one WGC event. Ernie Els has one. Phil Mickelson, Jim Furyk and Vijay Singh don't have any.
A month from now, we'll be trotting out the numbers again when Woods returns to defend his CA Championship title at Doral. He won the tournament there in 2007 (and the regular PGA Tour event at Doral in 2005 and 2006), as well as the previous two years, when it was played in England and San Francisco.
And when he returns to the Bridgestone in August, he will be trying to win that tournament for the fourth straight year.
By then, the talk may very well have shifted to Woods' Grand Slam bid, with the idea gaining more momentum with each victory.
Bob Harig is a frequent contributor to ESPN.com. He can be reached at BobHarig@gmail.com.
