Woods will best marks sooner than you think

It's a preposterous conversation repeated over and over these days during lunches or rain delays or on social networking sites.

Actually the debate has been going on for years, but the attention is ramping up as the presumed end line draws nearer.

It starts with a question -- when will (not just simply will ) Tiger Woods surpass Jack Nicklaus and Sam Snead on the all-time victory milestones lists? And which standard will he pass first -- the Bear's 18 career majors or the Slammer's 82 career wins?

Ask this question to any golf writer or most players and the response will flow out almost matter-of-factly -- sometime during the 2012 season, maybe as soon as 2011. A few skeptics might hem and haw over some catastrophic injury clause, but the general perception reigns that if Woods stays relatively healthy, the records are inevitable.

Let's do the math as we prepare to watch this week's British Open at Turnberry. Woods needs four more majors to catch Nicklaus and 14 to catch Snead. By Tiger standards, those numbers are relatively modest.

By human standards, however, they are gargantuan.

Four majors. That's as many as Greg Norman, Davis Love III and Fred Couples combined. It's one more than Hall of Famers Vijay Singh and Bill Casper have for their careers. It's more than marquee vets Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els and Padraig Harrington to date. It's more than all but 24 other golfers in history.

Fourteen wins. That's a full Kenny Perry or Hal Sutton. That's one shy of Couples' career mark. It's more than the career totals for all but seven active PGA Tour peers.

Put it this way -- 14 wins and four majors in a lifetime would get you in the Hall of Fame. Els for his career has 16 and three. We're predicting Tiger will put up comparable numbers in the next two to three years.

It's sounds crazy, doesn't it? But it's really not. With Tiger, it's not ridiculous at all.

The whole Tiger debate really comes down to arithmetic. Consider:

- His tournament winning percentage as a professional is 29.44 (68 of 231).

- His major winning percentage as a professional is a slightly poorer 29.17 (14 of 48).

- Of his PGA Tour victories, 20.59 percent are major titles.

Give these numbers to any actuary or accountant and they're all going to come up with pretty similar assessments.

Looking at it purely by stats, Woods should have 80 or 81 tour wins and 17 majors by the end of the 2011 season. That scenario would have him shooting for Nicklaus and perhaps passing Snead around the 2012 Masters Tournament.

But those numbers kind of lie -- and not the way you might think.

Woods is actually producing better in the past five years since implementing his current swing. Since the start of the 2005 season, he has won 41.8 percent of PGA Tour starts and 37.5 percent of majors. And seeing as he hasn't finished outside of the top 10 in 18 consecutive stroke-play events dating back to the summer of 2007, it would be hard to argue that Woods is slowing down.

That's what leads me to predict that Woods will be surpassing both Nicklaus and Snead a full year sooner than most conservative estimates.

My math puts Woods at 78 wins and 17 majors by the end of next year -- and that's actually restraining expectation if you can believe it. I honestly think he's capable of adding one extra major to that tally and tying Nicklaus before the end of next season.

Woods is always a decent bet at the British Open, and Turnberry is prone to producing star champions. He's as close as you get to a lock at St. Andrews next year, where he's won two in a row.

Woods should have won the PGA the last time it was at Hazeltine in 2003, so you have to like his chances of settling the score there in August.

You also have to think his five-year Masters drought is due to expire by next season.

And the last time the U.S. Open was played at Pebble Beach (the 2010 venue), Woods only won by a narrow 15 strokes.

So when I play this preposterous speculation game, my stock answer is that Woods will be making some history at the 2011 Masters -- vying to tie Jack's green jacket mark, tie or break his majors milestone while tossing in Snead's all-time victory standard as a little added gravy. And don't be surprised if he spices up the quest with another wrap-around slam.

Regardless, all those records are marked for extinction -- sooner rather than later.

Reach Scott Michaux at (706) 823-3219 or scott.michaux@augustachronicle.com.