I had asked my bashful friend about Tiger Woods as well as Westwood, and despite their somewhat different success ratio, it does appear they now have a similar problem on Sundays.
Whilst commentating for Sky at the US PGA Championship, Jack Nicklaus asserted that he believes Woods still has a good 10 years at the top - if he remains healthy - and therefore expects that Woods can still win the five majors he needs to surpass his own record (which alone would incidentally be equal to Seve Ballesteros' major haul).
Nicklaus maintains that the key to his own success was being meticulous in his preparations for the majors and then having the ability to relax once play had commenced, not letting it mean too much. Intriguingly he insists that he only played at his very best on a handful of occasions, but understood what it took to "win ugly". He finished in the top five on 54 occasions, with 19 second places, a record that will surely never be bettered.
When Woods was at his dominating best, Nicklaus argued that he was a truly great champion in an era otherwise devoid of great players, which was unlike Nicklaus's generation when he faced the likes of Palmer, Watson, Player, Trevino, Miller and Floyd. But what defines "greatness"? A simple answer might be the number of majors a player has won, and that is only known at the end of their careers. Phil Mickelson has now won five and Ernie Els four, with chances to improve. Are they "great"? Maybe only time will tell, but there's no question Nicklaus had some serious competition.
The one thing those old boys did not have to worry about was the impact of social media (or should it be "anti-social media"?). So many players nowadays seem to revel in telling the world their most intimate secrets, and then bitching about it when it all backfires on them. Of my broadcast colleagues there's no doubt that Dougie Donnelly is the champion tweeter. He is joined at the hip to his iPad, which supplies him with a steady stream of interesting gossip and intrigue with which to glamorise his commentaries. He is also pretty adept at promoting the Donnelly brand, a skill that has sadly eluded me. Ken Brown tends to dabble on and off depending on his mood, but he is very creative when the muse takes him. Warren Humphreys' computer is so full of statistics that there is no room for idle chit chat, while Dominique Boulet leaves technological communication to his patient bride. To him a tablet is something to put in his egg nog the morning after the night before. I dipped my toes into the Twittersphere a few times but ended up pressing the wrong button and transmitted hundreds of pages of rubbish, totally clogging up the company's server. Best leave it to professionals.
"To die, to sleep;
No more - and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to ... "
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