FLOURTOWN, Pa. — Elite professional golfers never doubt their ability. As Justin Thomas tells it, the world’s best are prone to downplaying their accomplishments lest they let their irrational confidence break contain.
But even for future World Golf Hall of Famers, some feats, those of legends known by one name who etched their name into history long before these greats were born, are hard to fathom achieving. The sheer weight of them and their historic nature make conjuring the image of yourself summiting that mountain nearly impossible to bring into focus.
These are the achievements of Jack, Player, Hogan and, of course, Tiger.
This generation of stars grew up on Woods. His historic 2000 season changed the trajectory of professional golf forever. Ask them to recall a favorite tournament and they almost all involve Woods.
Thomas, Xander Schauffele, Scottie Scheffler and others hold Woods as a friend and a contemporary. But they also revere him and his monumental accomplishments in the game. When players talk about the feats of Woods — 82 wins, 15 majors, the Tiger Slam — they speak of wanting to match those feats but do so with a wistfulness, like children who know their own limitations but hope to still find a way to shatter that ceiling.
The career Grand Slam used to be in that category. When Tiger Woods is the only person to do something in 60 years, the potential to achieve it understandably seems low. Just look at the names who haven’t achieved it: Arnie, Phil, Hagen, Nelson, Snead, Watson, Trevino, Els.
Irrational confidence is a trademark trait of professional athletes, but even that has its limits. Some dreams are meant to stay just that, except for the chosen few.
But Rory McIlroy’s thrilling Masters win, which saw him become the sixth golfer in history to win the career Grand Slam, might have put that feat in a new light.
“I think you realize how hard it is,” Xander Schauffele said Wednesday ahead of the Truist Championship at Philadelphia Cricket Club. “It took him 11 years, and [Jordan Spieth] is the next closest, and then everyone else before that had like three years before they clipped it. One, getting yourself in position to do it would be awesome. I’m far away. Closer than some, but I still feel far away. I still need to win another major before — I should say the correct major before I’m in the talks of it. It’s extremely motivating. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”
“Far away,” but doable.
McIlroy vanquishing his demons and “defeating his own mind” doesn’t make the career Grand Slam more attainable than it was before he beat Justin Rose in a playoff and collapsed on the 18th green at Augusta National.
But watching one of your peers achieve something you’ve previously only read about or vaguely remember seeing on TV as a kid makes it feel more real. It’s no longer something Tiger and Jack did years ago, but something you just witnessed, something you now feel you can reach out and grab if your game is sharp enough in the right moments.
