Anthony Kim's comments this week at the Players about playing other sports as a kid recalled Jack Nicklaus last November at the World Golf Hall of Fame:

Q. A lot of people throw the names of 20-something golfers with all this potential in the world out there left and right, but what do you think makes you different? What do you think might put you over the top?

ANTHONY KIM: I think playing other sports growing up. Winning was pretty big to me, and doing anything to win just when you're down 15 points in a basketball game or when things are going bad, I feel like I'm going to just keep fighting and fighting, and I know a lot of the guys, most of the guys are going to do that out there and not quit and I think if you don't quit, you're going to have a good opportunity to succeed out here.

Q. I was just curious, when you talk about your childhood and your background and being very well rounded and the different sports you played and whatnot, how has that served you through your career, and do you worry at all about what seems to be golfing landscape now where kids are doing golf and nothing but golf from an early age all the way through?

JACK NICKLAUS: You know, I can't do much with it. I think it's a different day. Everything is a different day. I hate to see kids specialize. Just like even the little school where my kids go to school, my grandkids are going to the same school that my kids did, and my kids got to have the opportunity to play all sports; they played football, basketball or baseball or golf or whatever they played, and they played that all through school. Now that silly school is now specializing in sports. I said, that's why you go to a small school, so you can be able to do all those things, have the opportunity to do it. Basically you have to do that. You have to almost specialize to be able to play.

You see kids specialize in golf. I think that is idiotic. It's crazy. I mean, you've got -- here you've got all these great things -- I don't know any of my grandkids play golf. They play, but they don't play golf. I can't imagine any of them if they really want to put a score on the board are going to break 90, but they're all quite capable of breaking 80, but they just don't play. And that's fine...

To play all the sports is great. I played everything. My dad played everything. When I finally ended up, golf to me was just another sport until I was about 19. When I won the National Amateur at 19, I finally said, hmm, I must be a little better than I think I am. It was just a game, still is a game. But it didn't make any difference to me. I mean, I was not -- I went right back -- I was in school at Ohio State, and I went right back and put my golf clubs away and played intramural football and basketball and volleyball and I didn't touch a golf club for three or four months, six months, whatever it was. It didn't make any difference. I knew I was going to play golf next year.

But I think kids today, they don't get their bodies well-rounded.... Eventually if you want to specialize in something, that's fine, but go out and enjoy and be happy to be able to play other things and do them. The opportunity to do that is there for you if you want to. That's what my dad did to me. He just gave me the opportunity. He introduced me to everything. I couldn't get enough of any one of them I played. I thought that was just great.

--Bob Carney

(Photo: Richard Heathcote, Getty Images)

Interesting that this letter from Missouri reader Hallie Gibbs was sent to us on Friday, in response to David Owen's column about Tiger in the May issue of Golf Digest, just at the point that most of us expected the usual Tiger charge to be gathering for a fifth Masters victory.

Owen writes of Tiger's dominance:

The real explanation, I think, is that Tiger's rivals try even harder when Tiger is playing well and end up focusing on him instead of staying out of their own way. When all those other guys finally, truly give up -- that's when Tiger will have to watch his back.

David Owen doesn't give Tiger enough credit. It's not a chokefest out there. Tiger is that much better! Even when he isn't playing, nobody in the "Tigerless" tournaments grinds and makes putts like he does. It's one thing to say that Tiger is intimidating. But it's another to acknowledge that he is just that much better!

We remember the roars that Jack created at Augusta but tend to forget the times the roars did not materialize, the putts didn't fall and Jack was runner-up. He finished second four times in the Masters--in 1964, 1971, 1977 and 1981--more than anyone except Ben Hogan and Tom Weiskopf, who also had four. Jack came in first or second in ten Masters tournaments: six wins, four seconds. Tiger, I suspect, will equal both those marks before he's through.

To quote Owen again: "Even if Tiger retired tomorrow, he'd have my vote as the best player ever."

Amen.

--Bob Carney

It's good to hear again from Dave Riffey of Shell Lake, WI. He's taken a break from shoveling snow and wants to talk about the endless comparisons of today's players (especially Tiger) with those of years gone by:

Every week it is the same old thing. someone comparing Tiger and the current players to the old guys and gals.   Why hasn't anyone set up a tour for the current players that required them to use the old wooden headed clubs. Call it the 60's & 70's tour. Each pro would be required to use clubs, balls, and putters only available from that era. Put the greens at the same speed, the distance the same as back then.

This would really be an interesting test to see how good the NEW players on the PGA and women of the LPGA tours would react and play.

Send them to Pebble, Augusta, the Old Course, Doral, Wing Foot etc. If the old players had the technology of today, back then, they would be  better than the players of today.
 

Dave, we were just talking about that today after someone mentioned Mark Frost's book, The Match, the new book about the great match among Hogan, Nelson, Venturi and Ward, that Bo Links wrote about in Golf World recently. How would those guys fare with all of this new equipment?

My thought: Tiger could play with bamboo and win and so could Hogan, Nelson, Nicklaus and a few others. Just how far down the list you'd go is why it's a great question.

By the way, I'm not wishing for the old days. We have one of those throwback events at the club from time to time. Man, golf gets hard when you're playing persimmon and balata!

--Bob Carney

I think my swing has been on the upright side probably through the years. But these guys who play by mechanical means with positions, I don't see how they can even play golf doing that. I have always felt you have to play golf by feel.

-- Jack Nicklaus, 1991

Not talking FedEx Cup, Day Three: From Frank Panetta in Saratoga, California comes a fond remembrance of Jack and second opinion on our delineation of the three Nicklaus swings in the October issue package.

How very nice to see Jack Nicklaus in his early years. I did get to see him for the first time at Monterey Peninsula Country Club in 1965. I was 14 years old and new to the game what thrill to stand next to him and watch that same swing that was on page 92 of this month's issue...

Jack Flick's comments about Jack's the Muscular Swing turned into the Classic Swing, I don't see at all...I see a swing that has deteriorated from the middle 1970's to his retirement. (This is obliviously do to hip issues, weight, flexibility, and the worst: old age starts moving in)

The Muscular Swing is really the Classic Swing... Jack Grout was a genius. He took this young boy and instilled in him the true classic swing and as everyone knows: "He is still the man to beat"

Frank, thanks for that. You can argue with the demarcation of the three swings, but not with Jim's compilation of the great man's basics. My favorite:

Jack practiced mechanically but played by feel.

Now there's a goal. One that I suspect is on Tiger's bulletin board along with that list of 18 majors.

--Bob Carney