Comparing Tiger to Jack

Several years ago I started tracking how Tiger Woods was doing in comparison to Jack Nicklaus in terms of majors won at the same point in their careers. What used to be interesting is that Tiger was way ahead on wins but not even close on top-5 or top-10 finishes. It seemed (past tense) that Tiger would either win or be way out of the running.

Over the past few years, Tiger has started to catch up on the top-5 and top-10 finishes in majors. At the 2009 Masters, completed yesterday, Tiger tied for 6th.

Through 47 majors as a pro, Jack had 11 wins, 10 second place finishes, 26 top-3 finishes, 30 top-5 finishes, and 33 top-10 finishes.
Now that Tiger has completed 47 majors as a pro, he has 14 wins (3 more than Jack), 5 second place finishes (5 less than Jack), 22 top-3's (4 less), 25 top-5's (5 less), and 30 top-10's (3 less).

That's the thing that I found so amazing about Jack - not only did he win the most majors ever (which Tiger will most likely beat) but he was in the running so often.

To know if Tiger has the ability to catch up quickly, here are majors 48 through 52 for Jack:
1973 PGA - Jack won
1974 Masters - Jack finished tied for fourth
1974 US Open - Jack finished tied for tenth
1974 British - Jack finished third
1974 PGA - Jack finished second

So that amounts to 1 win, 1 second, 3 top-3's, 4 top-5's, and 5-for-5 in top-10 finishes.

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