In the midst of Tiger Woods' struggles to rediscover his golf game, another story questioning his golfer previous dominance has surfaced.
Reuters.com is reporting that golfer Frank Nobilo, a 15-time professional winner, including once on the PGA Tour, said that Woods' 2000 season, in which he won three majors - the U.S. Open, the British Open and the PGA Championship - was aided by his use of better equipment.
"A lot of people look at 2000 as Tiger at his best but it was probably the first and only time in Tiger's career that you could argue that maybe he had better equipment than the rest," Nobilo, now a commentator for Golf Channel, told Reuters.
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"Only a handful of guys had gone to the solid ball. The rest of us all thought a wound ball was better."
It turned out that Woods was ahead of his time, as all golfers realized that the solid ball was better.
"Everybody caught up about a year or two later (with ball technology) and Tiger was still better, but not by quite as much," said Nobilo. "Everybody now is using the same type of equipment so it's hard for any one player to get that technological jump ahead that I believe Tiger had in 2000.
"He obviously had skills too but that's why it wasn't a fair fight."
Woods ended up winning nine of the 20 tournaments he entered and made the cut in all 20. His win at the U.S. Open that season was by a whopping 15 strokes.
Earlier in the week, Golf.com theorized that Woods' return to No. 1 with his five event wins could have been due to his familiarity with the courses that he won.
"Woods's five-win season in 2013 fooled us all," Golf.com surmised. "He appeared to be ramping up for another run at history, but now it looks increasingly like a last gasp, one final summoning of will and want from a proud champion.
"Even as Woods was prevailing on courses where he has so much institutional memory he still struggled at the major championships, the tournaments that mean everything to him and define his legacy. Those cracks in the façade continued to grow, to the point where now the entire edifice of his golf game has come crumbling down."
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