Jack Nicklaus vs. Tiger Woods: Who Faces Tougher Competition?

During Tiger Woods' career, his main competitors in majors have been Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, Vijay Singh, and Jim Furyk. 

Woods’ competitors have won 22 percent of all majors during Woods’ career, again showing that the number of players with the ability to win a major has been far greater during Woods career than it was during Nicklaus’ career.

Clearly, Woods has a larger number of legitimate competitors to worry about each week than Nicklaus did.

But, looking at the other side of the coin, no one has really stepped up to consistently challenge Woods the way Palmer, Player, Trevino, Casper, and Watson challenged Nicklaus.

This can be viewed on two fronts though.

Are players such as Mickelson, Els, Singh, and Goosen just as good today as Palmer, Player, Trevino, Casper, and Watson were, and is Tiger just that much better than them?

Or:

Was Palmer, Player, Trevino, and Watson a lot better than Tiger’s competition, thus providing Nicklaus with tougher head-to-head competition each week?

Therein is where the main question lies. 

Clearly Tiger Woods has more competition on a whole to worry about, but Nicklaus appears to have had more direct competition.

Is that because Nicklaus’ game was at a lower level that allowed the other top-ranked players to catch him?

and:

Is Tiger just that much better that his skill level allows him to exceed that of his direct competitors by a larger gap than Nicklaus was able to achieve?

Unless anyone has a time machine that can transport the likes of Nicklaus, Palmer, Player, Casper, and Watson into today’s PGA Tour and the likes of Woods, Mickelson, Els, Goosen, and Singh into the PGA Tour of the '60s and '70s, that is one question that will never be answered.

Which is a more demanding situation, a far larger number of overall competitors or a smaller, more concentrated group of great competitors?

I personally believe that 150 legitimate competitors is a tougher challenge to face than a group of five or so great competitors. 

But then again, I have no way of knowing whether Nicklaus’ toughest competitors were indeed better than Woods’ toughest competitors, or whether Woods is that much better than Nicklaus that he has been able to distance himself from players that are equally as good as Nicklaus’ competitors were.

This is one argument that will wage for years to come, and I personally don’t have the answer to it.

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