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Did Jack Nicklaus take a shot at 2008?

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I don’t know how many of you were watching Sunday’s telecast on NBC of the final round of the Honda Classic, but Jack Nicklaus made an appearance in the booth and said some pretty fascinating things to Dan Hicks and Johnny Miller.

For instance, he was at one point he was playing three different sets of clubs around the world, depending on where the tournament he was in was being played. So he doesn’t think a change in clubs is going to be a big deal for Rory McIlroy.

Jack Nicklaus thinks the PGA Tour is stronger today than five years ago (AP photo)

He also said if McIlroy had given it five more minutes, he likely wouldn’t have walked off the course on Friday. And that the PGA Tour should follow the USGA on whatever the USGA decides on anchored putting.

But the thing that I was struck by the most in listening to Nicklaus was when he said there were a lot of great players on the PGA Tour these days, with younger players and international stars adding to the depth of the tour. And, to paraphrase, Nicklaus said he didn’t think that five years ago there were that many good players on the tour, and that Tiger Woods pretty much had things to himself at the time.

Wait, what . . . ?

That’s right. Nicklaus said that five years ago he wasn’t convinced there were that many good players on tour. Take that, Class of 2008.

It wasn’t really that Nicklaus was criticizing the tour of five years ago as much as he was praising the tour of today. There are a lot of good players out there now, from Woods and McIlroy down to rookies and first-time winners on the circuit this year. And there has been an improvement in many golfers who were on the tour five years ago. For instance, Brandt Snedeker is now one of the top players in the world, and in 2008 he was, well, not one of the top players in the world.

Nicklaus also said he was sticking with his long-held line that Woods will eventually break Nicklaus’ record on 18 major champions (Woods has 14). But if Nicklaus is right about the tour being deeper and better now than it was in 2008, the last time Woods won a major, then maybe Woods’ path to the Nicklaus record is going to be tougher than Nicklaus is letting on.

 


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