Acorn showdown: Who's the world's most dominant athlete?

Gase I have to be honest. I don't like watching professional golf.

Playing the sport every once in a while is fun, but on television it's about as exciting as "Steel Magnolias."

Maybe it's because the game is slow, but that can't be right because I love baseball. No, the real reason I'm not a golf fan is because whether it's the first, second or 18th hole, I already know who's going to win- Tiger Woods.

Woods is hands down the most dominant player in his or her sport. He owns the Professional Golf Association like Joey Chestnut owns a hot dog eating contest.

To be honest, we should be arguing if Woods is the most dominant athlete of all time.

To compare Woods to other golfers playing today is a waste of time and space- newspapers are getting smaller these days, you know.

The 32-year-old Woods already has won 14 major tour events since he began his professional career in 1995. The only other PGA golfers under 50 years of age with at least three majors are Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els and Vijay Singh, who own three major titles each.

Dorman Woods was a great player as soon as he turned professional. He became the youngest player ever to win the Masters by claiming the green jacket in 1997, when he was 21 years, three months and 14 days old.

In 1999, Woods won his second major, the PGA Championship, and finished the year by making $6,616,585 on tour. The amount was nearly $3 million more then that year's runner-up on the money list, David Duval.

To put it into proper context, it would be like Alex Rodriguez leading the league in home runs with 50, while the slugger in second place only hit 25.

It would be like LaDainian Tomlinson rushing for 1,800 yards while nobody else in the league cracked 1,000.

And Woods was just getting started.

In 2000 he won the U.S. Open, the British Open and the PGA Championship. During the 2000 U.S. Open, Woods shot a 272 over a four-day period. The low score was good enough to win by 15 strokes.

Remember Game 6 of the NBA Finals a month ago? Imagine that happening four games in a row.

When Woods won his second career Masters title a few months later, in 2001, he became the first player to ever hold all four major championships at the same time, hence, the Tiger Slam.

The last time a baseball player won the Triple Crown was Carl Yastrzemski in 1967. No one had even walked on the moon yet.

What has Woods done lately, you ask? Well, since 2005 he's won six majors, including last month's thrilling U.S. Open victory.

Sports Illustrated writer Gary Van Sickle put it best in October 1996, after watching Woods play a round of golf.

"Golf, as we know it, is over. . . .He's not just a promising young Tour pro anymore; he's an era," Sickle wrote.

At the moment, Woods isn't doing much of anything, as he decided to sit out the remainder of the golf season following surgery on his left knee.

According to ESPN.com's Bob Harig, Woods was listed by a bookmaker as a 13-to-8 favorite to win the British Open before his injury. Now the playing field is finally level.

Other golfers better take advantage of Woods being sidelined temporarily, because when he decides to come back, they'll have no chance. Again.

- Contact Thomas Gase at tgase@theacorn.com.

The world's most dominant athlete isn't a quarterback, tennis player, baseball slugger or a fleet-footed soccer star. The world's most dominant athlete rides a surfboard for a living, and his name is Kelly Slater.

When searching for today's premier athletic performer, it's natural to look toward the mainstream sports- baseball, football, basketball, golf and soccer- for an answer. That, however, might not be the best strategy.

For example, the USA women's volleyball team comprised of Misty MayTreanor and Kerri Walsh has been an unstoppable force en route to winning a record 90 consecutive matches and 16 straight tournaments.

A lot of sports fans probably don't know who May-Treanor and Walsh are, but believe me, they dominate.

Comparing individuals who play for teams with those that compete alone can be a difficult challenge.

Last year, for example, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, perhaps the most irreplaceable athlete alive, put up passing numbers unseen before in NFL history, yet was unable to lead his team to a Super Bowl title.

Kobe Bryant of the Lakers was the NBA's Most Valuable Player, but when push came to shove in the Finals against Boston, Bryant couldn't elevate his team to a championship level, a la Michael Jordan.

Do Brady and Bryant take a back seat to a guy like Michael Phelps, who won eight medals at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece, and is poised for similar success in Beijing? It's a tough call.

New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez represents yet another element: The dominating athlete who often plays his worst when the pressure is at its peak. Sometimes it isn't enough to be the greatest in your sport most of the time.

And then, of course, there's Tiger Woods, the man generally referred to as the world's most dominant athlete. But let's be honest, Woods is laid up right now while he recovers from knee surgery, and it's tough to win golf tournaments when you're not on the course.

Slater, on the other hand, is doing things never seen before in the world of professional surfing, a sport that certainly doesn't qualify as mainstream in the continental United States but is huge in places like Australia, Hawaii, South Africa, France and Brazil.

With a record eight Association of Surfing Professionals world titles- Australian Mark Richards is second on the list with five championships- Slater has long been regarded as the most talented surfer to ever enter the ocean.

He's won more ASP major events (38) than any other surfer in history, and also has the honor of being the youngest ASP world champion (20 years old in 1992) and oldest (34 in 2006).

This ASP season, Slater has been on fire, winning four of the first five events on tour. To put this accomplishment into perspective, Taylor Knox, a 15-year member of the ASP who was born in Thousand Oaks and is generally regarded as one of the finest surfers of his generation, has never won an ASP major event.

At 36 years old, Slater is beating guys 10 to 15 years younger, and doing so on a regular basis. He's quickly closing in on his ninth world title- he would certainly have a few more if it wasn't for the threeyear sabbatical he took from 1999-2001.

Woods' greatness can't be debated, but neither can Slater's. Even if you're not a surfing fan, you must admire the scale of this man's accomplishments in the water.

- Contact Stephen Dorman at sdorman@theacorn.com.