Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus are the two golfers who stand head and shoulders above everyone else in the history of the game.
Woods always idolized Nicklaus and immediately set about overtaking his major record when he emerged on the scene in the mid-1990s.
Nicklaus has admitted that he and Woods were very evenly matched, although the Golden Bear does believe he was a better driver of the golf ball than Tiger.
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Woods, 50, has won a record-equalling 82 PGA Tour events throughout his career, while Nicklaus ‘only’ managed 73 victories.
However, the 86-year-old holds the upper hand when it comes to major wins, with 18 compared to Woods’ 15.
Interestingly, Golfing Gazette readers recently voted Nicklaus as the greatest of all time ahead of Woods. However, what do the stats tell us?
Is there a way to actually prove who was the better golfer out of the two? Golf fans obviously have their own opinions, but it seems like the numbers actually point to Woods being the undisputed greatest golfer of all time.
Proof that Tiger Woods is categorically better than Jack Nicklaus
Woods and Nicklaus both possess truly outstanding records during their time in the professional game.
It’s no surprise because not only are they the most talented golfers to have ever lived, but they’re also the hardest workers as well.
While naming Nicklaus as the greatest golfer of all time is a perfectly valid opinion, Woods’ numbers are actually substantially better than the 86-year-old’s.
Woods won 82 of the 378 PGA Tour events he played in. That comes in at a whopping 21.7% win rate.
Meanwhile, Nicklaus won 73 of the 584 events that he played – a win rate of 12.5%.
Woods recorded 199 top-10 finishes from the 378 events he played (53%) compared to Nicklaus’s record of 286 top-10s in 584 starts (49%).
In 378 starts, Woods racked up 163 top-5s (43.1%) while Nicklaus managed 209 top-5 finishes from 584 events played (35.8%).
It’s clear to see from those numbers that Tiger Woods actually has the edge over Nicklaus as far as the percentages are concerned.
Now let’s take a look at the majors…
Tiger Woods vs Jack Nicklaus major records compared
While Nicklaus has the edge on Woods when it comes to majors won, the 50-year-old once again holds the advantage when it comes to percentages
Woods has won 15 of the 95 majors he has played during his career to date – a truly incredible 15.8% win rate.
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Meanwhile, Nicklaus achieved 18 major victories in 164 starts – a win rate of 11%. That’s still mightily impressive, but not quite in the same league as Woods.
The 50-year-old won a major every 6.6 times he teed it up on average. That is truly remarkable.
It’s also worth highlighting how Tiger Woods faced far stronger fields than Jack Nicklaus did throughout his career on the PGA Tour.
Sure, Nicklaus competed against three incredibly gifted golfers regularly in the form of Arnold Palmer, Gary Player and Tom Watson.
However, the strength in depth of the fields was nowhere near as strong in the 1960s through to the 1980s as they were from 2000 onwards.
Woods had to come up against plenty of world-class players throughout his career as well, including the likes of Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Vijay Singh, Dustin Johnson and Rory McIlroy.
The percentage numbers prove that Woods actually had a better PGA Tour and major record than Nicklaus did. Had Woods managed to avoid injuries throughout his career, he may well have surpassed Nicklaus’s major haul.
In fact, there is a very good chance that he would have.
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