“I’ve played with Tiger when he was playing the best he’s ever played, and it was a real treat to see it — although it wasn’t a treat to be humiliated by his dominance,” Cink said. “I’ve also played with some of these younger guys. They’re special players. I would love for the game to give us Tiger getting back to where he was so we could see what he would do against Justin Thomas, Dustin Johnson, Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy.
“The golf world would get a real kick out of it.”
Thomas, Dustin Johnson and Spieth are the last three players to be voted PGA Tour player of the year. They are major champions.
Could they have taken him?
“My self-confidence and self-belief would say, ‘Yes,’” Thomas said.
Then he paused and began to smile before adding with a chuckle, “But everything I’ve watched and everything I’ve heard ... no.”
Thomas learned last year that he didn’t need his absolute best stuff to win tournaments. He’s not sure anything but his best would have worked against Woods.
Dustin Johnson, the No. 1 player in the world, has 17 victories on the PGA Tour. Woods played in only one of those events, the 2010 BMW Championship.
“If I’m playing my best? Yeah, I’d take him,” Johnson said. “But over the course of a season? For nine years, 10 years in a row? He kept that level up for 10 years. That’s very, very sick. My best versus his best, I think it’s going to be neck and neck. But he was playing at his best for 10 years.”
Spieth, realizing there is no way of knowing because of how much the game has changed in 10 years, found his answer in numbers.
There are a lot of numbers when it comes to Tiger.
Spieth had his best year in 2015 when his five PGA Tour victories included two majors. Woods had years that good or better in 2000, 2002, 2005 and 2006.
“You get out here and you get caught up in the world ranking, what you’re doing compared with those around you,” Spieth said. “It’s not until you look at data, or statistics, where I’ve started to see, ‘Wow, that was absolutely incredible.’ The win percentage is the most amazing stat of his career.”
Until Woods had his first back surgery in April 2014, his rate of winning on the PGA Tour was 26 percent. Spieth is the most reasonable comparison because of his age and the schedule he keeps. He already has 11 wins and two majors at age 24.
His rate of winning is 9 percent.
“It’s absurd,” Spieth said. “What he was able to do year in and year out ... I don’t think it’s going to happen again.”
But to get just a glimpse of it, would that be asking too much?