With his third win Sunday at the Masters, Tiger Woods now has seven professional major championships in 21 appearances.
While he's beaten opponents into submission, an example being the 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, Calif., when he won by 15 strokes, he earned his third green jacket by merely being on the leaderboard.
However, getting to this state of utter dominance took some work.
Though he won his first Masters when he was 21 years old by 12 strokes, he was not a complete player then. Along with his coach, Butch Harmon, Woods began a swing change that both hoped would make him a consistently great player.
For nearly 18 months, Woods was criticized for his inability to control the distance of his ball with his short irons. Finally, during a practice session before the 1999 Byron Nelson Classic, Woods came off the practice range and said to Harmon something to the effect of \I've got it.""
This began a run of winning six majors in the last 10. That is almost beyond comprehension in the annals of golf history, with the high point coming at the 2000 U.S. Open.
When he won the U.S. Open, Woods literally made players give up the game. The combination of the margin of victory and the fact that he was the only player to break par for the weekend on a difficult course mentally broke their will to win. It was as though Woods was playing an entirely different course than the rest of the field.
Then came the comparisons to Michael Jordan. While both dominate their respective sports, where they separate themselves from the rest of their colleagues is their mental toughness.
Both Woods and Jordan have the capacity to focus at the most crucial moment in a tournament or game. When Woods needs a crucial 10-foot par-saving putt, he almost always makes it, while Jordan almost always hits the 15-foot championship winning shot.
While this would already give Woods and Jordan an advantage, the real advantage lies not in the ability to win when it counts, but to put people away early in the game.
In Woods' case, the most glaring example is the 2000 U.S. Open where Woods was up by 10 strokes entering the final round. As for Jordan, can anyone forget Game 1 of the 1992 NBA Finals, when he scored 35 points in the first half, including six three-point shots and his famous shrug towards the announcers' table?
But what Woods did Sunday is further proof of his mental toughness'the ability to make others around him fold.
While Woods got out to a good start, the field collapsed around him, as Vijay Singh scored a quadruple-bogey on No. 15 and finished with a 76, Sergio Garcia shot 75, Retief Goosen carded a 74 and Ernie Els got around Augusta in 73 strokes. These are some of the top players in the world, not just your average PGA Tour player.
Within this tournament lies the greatest truth of Woods' mental dominance, of which only Jordan and Jack Nicklaus compare'Woods knows he's good, the field knows he's good and Woods knows that they know he's good.
For the rest of the golfing world, that is a scary proposition.
