The Game Of Risk

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Like Michael Jordan, Woods not only dominates his sport but is changing the way it is played--and the way it will be played by the next generation. "It's cool now to play golf," Woods says, and if his Tiger Woods Foundation succeeds in making courses and equipment available to more underprivileged kids, the sport will "attract the better natural athletes"--including the bigger and stronger kids, many of them black and Hispanic and Asian. "Just imagine," Woods muses, his eyes alight, "if Michael Jordan, with his size and strength and hand-eye coordination, had started playing golf early?"

Any would-be Tigers will, in fact, have to start early. Tiger's dad Earl, a Green Beret lieutenant colonel in Vietnam, took up golf in his 40s, a few years before Tiger was born. And though he became a one-handicap, his struggles convinced him that kids should be taught the game as soon as they're capable of swinging a sawed-off club. For his son, that was at 10 months. Tiger took a strong interest in the game, which, by all accounts, his parents managed to encourage without pushing and while keeping things fun.

Earl taught the basics, but Tiger couldn't hit the ball very far, so he learned to score with putts and delicate wedge shots. His first instructor, Rudy Duran, recalls that at age five "Tiger had the skill and imagination to hit high wedge shots, low ones, shots with backspin." Nicklaus, in contrast, feels he never developed first-rate shots from off the green because he didn't start playing golf seriously until age 10, when he was already big for his age and intent on smashing the ball.

What Tiger shares with Nicklaus is a first-rate mental game, a vital weapon in a sport in which major tournament pressure can crush even great players. Woods has "the ability to stay in the present during a tournament and focus on hitting one shot at a time," Duran says. Woods' profane outbursts, once common, are now rare. He has learned to laugh at himself more often, which he did even when he made a triple-bogey in the third round at the U.S. Open.

At the U.S. and British Opens, rather than rip every drive and fire his iron shots at every flag, Woods on most holes played his tee shot in the fairway and his approach shot to the safest part of the green. Woods knows he isn't a great bunker player (yet) and that the ones at St. Andrews--112 of them--are especially treacherous. So he worked hard to keep his ball out of the sand and was the one player to do so for 72 holes. He followed the example of Nicklaus, who when he had a good lead through three rounds would play conservatively and, as Harmon puts it, "let others make mistakes." So confident was Woods, with a 6-shot lead through the third round at St. Andrews, that he told an old coach, John Anselmo,"It's a done deal."

Can Woods be the greatest golfer of all time? Well, by the standard measure, he has to win 15 more major tournaments as a pro to pass Nicklaus' record of 18. Nicklaus and Woods say they feel a bond, and the older man has been generous with compliments and advice--for example, counseling Woods against playing so many events that he burns out. But Nicklaus is proud of his records and coy in some of his comments. For one: "Tiger is much like any other player who is at the top of his game." Translation: many players have a hot hand for a few seasons and then cool off. It's often a matter not of swing mechanics but of the vagaries of putting, where the eye and the touch can abandon even players with silky-looking strokes.

Adds Nicklaus: "Tiger is better than the other players by a greater margin than I was." Translation: Who does Tiger have to beat? Els and Vijay Singh, who have won two majors each? Duval and Phil Mickelson, who have won none? I had to beat Arnold Palmer, who won seven majors; Gary Player, who won nine; Lee Trevino, who won six; Tom Watson, who won eight. Speaking of the succession of seasoned players he challenged and was challenged by, Nicklaus says, "I always enjoyed that. Tiger hasn't had that yet--but he will." And we have that to look forward to.

For more pictures of Tiger Woods and his swing, go to Photo Essays at Time.com