If Pope Benedict XVI was a golf fan, Tiger Woods would already be a saint. Yet deification for the world's best player cannot be too far away if the reaction to his victory in last Sunday's US PGA Championship at Medinah is anything to go by. Indeed, one excitable American sports columnist was driven to describe Woods as the greatest individual athlete of all time. As is the way of the provocative columnist, he then asked readers to send in their votes. The ballots are already being counted (on ESPN.com for anyone who is interested).
As futility goes, surely nothing beats such an exercise. Who is the greatest athlete of all time: Tiger Woods or Muhammad Ali? Babe Ruth or Stanley Matthews? Steve Redgrave or Shergar? Rod Laver or Franz Klammer? You might as well ask what is the most useful item on the shelves of a Tesco supermarket: McVitie's chocolate digestives or Daz washing power?
Yet an intrinsic part of being obsessed with sport is being enthused by pointless comparisons between athletes who share little in common other than their brilliance. Much as I would like to tell you I have spent the four days since Woods won the 12th major of his career pondering the civil liberty implications of profile screening passengers at international airports, the truth is I have spent them wondering if Woods really could be the greatest ever.
I was lucky enough to spend Sunday afternoon following the world No1 around Medinah and can report that he certainly looks the part. Great athletes all have stage presence and he is a Mount Rushmore of a man. Poor Luke Donald, his playing partner for the day, was dwarfed beside him on the tee. The Englishman is an exceptional golfer but looked like a 12-handicapper when measured against Woods.
For all its apparent omnipotence, television does not fully capture the experience of live golf. Its two dimensions magnify the mundane while diminishing the difficult. The most impressive thing about Woods is that he is at his best when required to perform a difficult task. His second shot to the first green was a perfect example. Facing a downhill lie, to a pin that was so inaccessible it might as well have been planted in the middle of the bunker guarding the front of the green, he feathered his ball to six feet, and then rolled in the putt for birdie. Tournament over.
In a purely athletic sense, Woods's effort in the final round was easily the greatest single sporting performance I have ever seen. I can fully understand why so many people agree, but I still cannot comprehend the urge to anoint him as the greatest athlete of all time. That's because I have always taken the view that great athletes become truly great when they use their status shape the society in which they live. When it comes to tennis, I would always take Arthur Ashe over Pete Sampras, even though Sampras was clearly the better player. Ashe was a brilliant as well but he was also a fearless campaigner on issues like racial intolerance and the treatment of Aids patients.
By this measure of social involvement Woods falls short. On the positive side, at least he is not as detached as his great friend Michael Jordan, who once declined to criticise a nasty, racist politician called Jesse Helms on the grounds that "Republicans buy sneakers too". And Woods recently built a learning centre for under-privileged kids in California - a step in the right direction, definitely, but still a long way short of the late Earl Woods's claim that his son would one day change the world.
Maybe he will one day, but until then I will stick by the man who I will always consider to be the greatest athlete of all time: the former world heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali. A great athlete and a man who really did change the world in which he lived.
By Lawrence Donegan
As futility goes, surely nothing beats such an exercise. Who is the greatest athlete of all time: Tiger Woods or Muhammad Ali? Babe Ruth or Stanley Matthews? Steve Redgrave or Shergar? Rod Laver or Franz Klammer? You might as well ask what is the most useful item on the shelves of a Tesco supermarket: McVitie's chocolate digestives or Daz washing power?
Yet an intrinsic part of being obsessed with sport is being enthused by pointless comparisons between athletes who share little in common other than their brilliance. Much as I would like to tell you I have spent the four days since Woods won the 12th major of his career pondering the civil liberty implications of profile screening passengers at international airports, the truth is I have spent them wondering if Woods really could be the greatest ever.
I was lucky enough to spend Sunday afternoon following the world No1 around Medinah and can report that he certainly looks the part. Great athletes all have stage presence and he is a Mount Rushmore of a man. Poor Luke Donald, his playing partner for the day, was dwarfed beside him on the tee. The Englishman is an exceptional golfer but looked like a 12-handicapper when measured against Woods.
For all its apparent omnipotence, television does not fully capture the experience of live golf. Its two dimensions magnify the mundane while diminishing the difficult. The most impressive thing about Woods is that he is at his best when required to perform a difficult task. His second shot to the first green was a perfect example. Facing a downhill lie, to a pin that was so inaccessible it might as well have been planted in the middle of the bunker guarding the front of the green, he feathered his ball to six feet, and then rolled in the putt for birdie. Tournament over.
In a purely athletic sense, Woods's effort in the final round was easily the greatest single sporting performance I have ever seen. I can fully understand why so many people agree, but I still cannot comprehend the urge to anoint him as the greatest athlete of all time. That's because I have always taken the view that great athletes become truly great when they use their status shape the society in which they live. When it comes to tennis, I would always take Arthur Ashe over Pete Sampras, even though Sampras was clearly the better player. Ashe was a brilliant as well but he was also a fearless campaigner on issues like racial intolerance and the treatment of Aids patients.
By this measure of social involvement Woods falls short. On the positive side, at least he is not as detached as his great friend Michael Jordan, who once declined to criticise a nasty, racist politician called Jesse Helms on the grounds that "Republicans buy sneakers too". And Woods recently built a learning centre for under-privileged kids in California - a step in the right direction, definitely, but still a long way short of the late Earl Woods's claim that his son would one day change the world.
Maybe he will one day, but until then I will stick by the man who I will always consider to be the greatest athlete of all time: the former world heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali. A great athlete and a man who really did change the world in which he lived.
By Lawrence Donegan
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