Is a Tiger meant to be the GOAT?

Tiger Woods was back in the news this past weekend when his son Charlie helped his high school win a major golf event.

Both Woods and his ex-wife were in attendance, cheering on their son and the Florida-based team, which took home its second state trophy. Woods’ son shot the lowest score, a four-under 68.

That’s great, but compared to what his dad was doing at that age, it’s almost a ho-hum. When Tiger was his son’s age, 16, he was already on the road to greatness, about to enter the realm of the superhuman with his second U.S. Junior Amateur Champion’s trophy in 1992.

Any golfing fan, or sports fan in general, can go to YouTube this very moment (screw work) and, thankfully, still watch all six of Tiger’s U.S. wins as an amateur. Take a few days since the entire tournaments can thankfully be found online.

Woods won the U.S. Junior Amateur three times between 1991 (he was 15) and 1994 and then the U.S. Amateur championships between 1994 and 1996. To put that into perspective, no golfer has ever won both, let alone each three times back-to-back.

Jack Nicklaus, considered to be the golfing GOAT by many, won the U.S. Amateur in 1959 and ’61, but never won the junior amateur, reaching only the semifinals in 1956.

In the 1960 U.S. Amateur Championship, Nicklaus finished second, two strokes behind Arnold Palmer.

So, the fact that Woods not only won both amateur tournaments, but won each three times in a row, is worthy of amazement and awe.

Who Is the GOAT?

If golf’s Greatest-Of-All-Time should include amateur wins along with major wins, then Woods outnumbers Nicklaus 21 to 20.

A lot of golf fans only like to count the professional majors though, and Nicklaus has Woods beat, 18 to 15.

Total PGA tournament victories, Woods beats Nicklaus 82 to 73.

Every golf fan has to wonder, though, if Tiger hadn’t gotten into his marriage difficulties, stripper problems, hadn’t run in combat boots with the SEALS as part of his training, hadn’t lifted so many weights, then would he really have gone through an 11-year dry spell, which is what happened after he won the U.S. Open in 2008 and didn’t win another major until he took home his fifth green jacket at the 2019 Masters.

Eleven years without a major win for a guy who was phenomenal between 1997 and 2008, winning 14 majors and 54 other PGA tourneys.

Then he comes up empty for 11 years (counting just the major tournaments) before winningAugusta in 2019.

If you count his non-major wins during that same 11-year stretch, the number is 24.

Makes you wonder, how many more majors could the guy have won if he had avoided the tabloids following his failed marriage in 2010 and at least 15 surgeries, including multiple back surgeries, five knee surgeries, and two Achilles tendon procedures.

That’s not even counting the multiple injuries, including compound fractures, he had thanks to driving too fast on a California highway in February 2021, which pretty much finished his career as a pro.

Last month, In October 2025, Tiger Woods had a lumbar disc replacement surgery on his lower back (L4/5) to address pain from a collapsed disc. This was his seventh back surgery and was performed to relieve symptoms caused by the collapsed disc, disc fragments, and a compromised spinal canal This hurts just writing about it. Living with it, he only turns 50 next month, can’t be easy.

How would any of us like to hear, “We need to do a seventh surgery on your back to relieve the pain.”

Seven?

Anyone with a brain, andTiger’s not dumb by any means, must know that any back surgery carries a certain degree of serious risk.

Whether or not he’ll compete on the seniors tour next year, rebranded the Champions Tour, where he can ride a cart and only play 54 holes vs. 72, who knows. That’s still a lot of torque on the back.

Golf analysts say that a lot of his physical trauma was due to the amount of torque his swing put on his lower back, but for me, I blame it on all the running he did with the SEALS. 

Running is great until you realize that you’re killing your knees in the process, except for the very few genetically predisposed toward running with no serious adverse side effects down the road, which are few and far between.

Guaranteed, if Woods lived like golfer John Daley (overweight, a heavy smoker, drinker) but still had his own Tiger talent, he would have won many more majors than the 15 he did, including the amazing 2019 comeback at Augusta.

If he stayed focused on the game like Jack Nicklaud did, without dipping into the strippers, that would have helped, too.

For my money, though, when judging golf’s GOAT, I’ll include Woods’ six wins back-to-back as an amateur, and he’s got Jack Nicklaus beat at the game’s highest level 21-20.

Those early videos of Woods on YouTube, though, when he was still relatively young, in perfect shape, no distractions, what a game he had, bar none.