Tiger Woods hasn't won 59 tournaments yet, or shot a 59 when it counted. Neither has he jumped in a pond after winning.
Annika Sorenstam has, so maybe it wasn't an exaggeration when LPGA great Nancy Lopez said last weekend that Sorenstam is "really, and truly" better than Woods.
No, Lopez didn't mean Sorenstam can beat Woods on the golf course.
She knows that if you put the two on the course from the same tees, Woods wins easily every time. Let Sorenstam play the women's tees, and Woods still wins most of the time.
What Lopez was arguing was that Sorenstam is better than Woods because she is more dominant among those of her own gender than Woods has been against men on the US PGA Tour.
"Tiger, he was awesome," Lopez said. "He's won and played great golf, but I just don't think he dominated the way she has."
It's a reasonable enough argument, for those who believe women's golf is the equal of the men's tour. Sorenstam has done things never seen before on the LPGA Tour, where she's now won her last five tournaments and the first major championship of the year in a romp.
Imagine, if you will, Woods going into Augusta on a four-tournament winning streak and then blowing away the field in the Masters. Tigermania would sweep the world once again, and newspapers and sports shows would be filled with stories and talk about his deeds.
Sorenstam basically did the same thing over the weekend in the California desert, though hardly anyone noticed in America. She obliterated the field, didn't make a bogey in her last 39 holes, and won by eight shots over Rosie Jones.
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