The Coalition of the Swilling

::eyeroll::

Puh-leez...

I was reading that list of Tiger's Rules and they sounded an awful lot like Jordan or Patrick Roy or any other magnificent competitor. (Yes, Ms. Sister, I think Jete's got a lot of that in him too. I'd trade you any Met straight up for Jete, up to and including Beltran.) (OK, maybe not David Wright.) Of the great talents, there are some who find a rival (Bird v. Magic), with each driving the other higher. But then there are the surpassing few who find even the idea of a rival insulting - they are driven to ensure that no man would ever be capable of stepping out of his shadow. That's Tiger.

And that's why I eventually changed my mind on the man. Tiger holds himself to impeccable standards in life and in golf. He will never settle, never quit. He is transcending his sport and is leaving a mark on the world. Good for him.

I disagree about the rival thing, Nightfly. In my opinion, Jordan got lucky to not have a rival, it's fed the myth that he's the greatest ever. I think it's more a timing thing than anything else, sometimes there is a dip in the talent level and a guy who was at the prior level looks so much better than everyone else that he is unrivaled.

My guess is that if MJ would have had someone that he saw all the time in the finals, like Magic had Bird (for ten years, either the Lakers, Celtics, or both were in the finals), he probably only would have won half the titles that he did.

The same thing applies to Tiger, no one else is really that good right now. A rivalry would make him better but everyone is intimidated by him and willing to play for second (or hope Tiger has an off day). That's not to say he's not great - or even "transcending" - because he is. But he'd still be better with a real rival.

KG, welcome! I tried to comment on your blog, but the image i was supposed to see doesn't seem to show up in Firefox.

As far as a rival, I really wish the Masters had extended an invite to Camilo Villegas; I think he's got a shot to give Tiger a run...providing he learns to putt a little better.

KG - maybe I was too abrupt in transition. (Seems to be a theme with my writing the last couple of days.) Tiger's drive and relentless demand for excellence resemble Jordan's. But I think that these two things are related.

I'll concede that Jordan fell between the stools as far as rivals, somewhat - no Lebron, no Wade, no Kobe - but because of his matchless drive, he swatted away anyone who approached his level, anyone who was even suggested in the media as a foil. Drexler, Barkley, and Penny Hardaway all had their shot. The Knicks had more chances than anyone else - forced some game sevens, even held a 2-0 lead one series.

Tiger does the same thing. Duval, Mickelson, Singh, etc... Tiger's attitude is, basically, they'll get nothing and like it. If they were his true equals they wouldn't stand for it.

Bingley, what were you trying to comment on? Perhaps I can fix it.

Nightfly, I'll agree about the attitude thing, definitely true there.

I was just going to say that I mostly agreed with your 'creed' post, and when i hit the 'post button' it gave me an error page saying I needed to type in the text that was hidden in the field. Only problem that, in firefox, there was no field with the anti-spam text displayed. i didn't get a chance to try it using ie.

Now when i went there using IE it accepted the comment no problem (it did stick a few cookies on my machine here), and no text-box to be seen.

That's strange, Bingley, I'm still new to Firefox and haven't learned all the little secerts of blogsome, but I'll look around. As far as the cookies on IE, that happens on just about every blog I visit with IE.

Oh, and I'm glad someone agrees.