Goydos Calls Tiger: 'Most Underrated Player on Tour'

Tiger Woods is 33, has been on tour since 1996, and has 14 major victories. Save those junior tournaments where he was the youngest player in the field, I don't think he's ever been called underrated.

That changed yesterday when PGA Tour player Paul Goydos told the Boston Globe exactly that:

"We live in the era of Tiger Woods, who makes winning look ridiculously easy. The more I think about it, the more I feel Tiger Woods is the most underrated player on this tour. You guys have no concept of what he accomplishes on a weekly basis when he plays. It's ridiculous how good he plays.''

"You learn from losing. You learn from your mistakes. Kids are in school and they take a test, and if they get 100 percent on every test, then they shouldn't be in the class. They should be in something harder. If you didn't learn from losing - I mean, that's where all the lessons come from. I'm sure Tiger's the dumbest guy around. He never loses.''

Come for the golf, stay for the jokes.

Goydos is onto something, though. During a sit-down with Michael Wilbon yesterday, Tiger admitted that, as a father of two, he has much less time to devote to practice, which means that his sessions have to be more focused.



That's nothing new -- every golfer who has started a family can tell a similar story -- but the difference is exactly what Goydos points to: Woods makes winning look easy despite the off-course responsibilities that come with getting married and having kids.

It was also interesting to hear Tiger tell Wilbon about the parts of his game that need work. Goydos' exaggerations aside, Woods does lose, and at the U.S. Open it was because he couldn't make a putt. Which goes back to the importance of practicing more efficiently.

Talkin' 'bout practice, Wilbon asked Tiger if he thought that Ben Roethlisberger -- the Steelers quarterback who fired an 81 at Bethpage Black the week before the Open and suggested that "if he went at it full time he thinks he could play on the tour" -- could make it as a professional golfer. Woods' response:

"Could he do it? You know, he certainly has an athletic gift to play sports, there's no doubt. To play at our level -- the highest level -- it's going to be hard. It just takes so much time and years of development.

Right now, he's getting killed. He's getting banged up. Can he stay healthy enough, long enough where if he wants to take this on seriously, can he? Can he put the hours into it?

When asked if Big Ben's 81 at Bethpage surprised him, Tiger offered this: "It did, it really did. I didn't think he was that good."

I think that's right -- it's too late in the proceedings for Roethlisberger to make a go as a professional golfer, just not because of injury concerns. He's turned taking a beating into an art form, and that includes helmetlessly head-butting the concrete three years ago.