Along with the rest of the human race, I have spent the last 12 months truly marvelling at Tiger Woods.

We all knew he was good. But he's just stepped up to reeeeeeeeally good in my estimations (that's on my official scale!). However, I have got to thinking about his domination recently.

I'm not talking about the amount of wins. As the man himself says, concentrate on winning and the rest is taken care of. I'm talking about his scores. In the Fedex Cup playoffs, his scoring average has been just over 65. That's over 12 rounds. That's fantastic scoring. Why can't anyone else replicate that? Surely, he means that if you take care of scoring, winning takes care of itself?

Whilst I recognise his achievements and hail them (I am a big Tiger fan), what I am not doing, however, is falling into the trap of thinking he is untouchable. His fellow peers seem to have resigned to the fact that, if he's in the field, they would be lucky to win.

To me, that's giving it to him before a ball is even hit.

He is a human man. Over time, he has learnt to control his emotions, control his golf swing, improve his body, get up and down from anywhere and never stop trying. Are these attributes that nobody else can learn?

No.

Is it easy to do?

No.

But, everyone can learn to do this. There is not one thing that Tiger does that cannot be learned. The only barrier to not being able to learn to do something is self-doubt. Tiger does have one perceived "advantage" over everyone. He's been geared to improve since he was 2 years old. Nobody can go back in time to start again when they were a toddler. But, if a man believes he needed to swing a club before being able to walk in order to be as good as Tiger, he has already conceded the fight.

A pushy parent may decide now that his son is going to be the next Tiger, but even then it may not work out. We'll have to wait and see. And we want a challenger now, for Tiger, not when he's done and gone home.

For a grown adult though, the hardest thing to learn or teach ones self, out of all Tigers attributes, is his brain power/mental approach/tactical brain or whatever you want to call it.

But I believe it can be done. It probably takes a long time, but if others on the PGA Tour believe that it can be done, then they can catch him. They already have the physical skills required.

I'm sure Tiger is loving the fact that he is dominating his profession. It validates his hard work. But I wonder how much he wants someone to step out of the chasing pack and challenge him regularly?

In the time of Jack Nicklaus, you had Tom Watson, Gary Player, Arnold Palmer and later, Lee Trevino.

Between them, the 4 direct competitors of Nicklaus amassed 30 Majors (majors seem to be a favoured way of measuring the elite golfers success, so we'll go with that).

Tigers peers? Well, if you include all major winners that are still playing competitively (Mickelson, Furyk, Els, Singh, Daly, Goosen, Olazabal, Beem, Cabrera, Calcavecchia, Campbell, Curtis, Hamilton, Harrington, Johnson, Lawrie, Leonard, Micheel, Love III, Toms, Ogilvy, Johnson and Weir) they have amassed 31 between them.

That's 31 between 23 players in Tigers Era, as opposed to 30 between 4 against Nicklaus.

Now, it could be argued that the standard has risen so much that more players are winning majors now than yester-year. But how do you account for Tiger Woods? And it isn't like nobody else won at least one major between 1962 and 1986 is it?

Despite all these other players winning majors today, the closest anyone can get to Tigers major haul is 3 (Els, Mickelson and Singh). The closest in Nicklaus' time? Gary Player with 9.

For the record, Watson got 8, Palmer got 7 and Trevino got 6.

For the purposes of argument, let's say that Tiger wins his last major aged 46 (the same as Nicklaus). The three major contenders (Els, Mickelson and Singh) have 15 years (60 majors) to get another 21 majors between them. That equates to any of them winning 1 or 2 majors per year for 15 straight years to give Tiger the challenge that Nicklaus had. And they're all older than Tiger. Singh is even creeping closer to the Senior Tour. So that leaves two "challengers".

Unless the top level players get their finger out soon, Tiger will be unchallengable.

Despite all the promise the younger crop have either shown, or been hyped to show, there has been nothing of note to say that Tiger should be worried in the near future. Of the exhuastive list of 23 active major winners above, the youngest is either Johnson or Weir. Of 23 active major winners, well over half of them (16) have only won one.

Even Bobby Jones collection of 13 majors was challenged in the same period by Walter Haagen's 11 and Gene Sarazen's 7.

I submit to one and all that it is not credible to state that the overall standard has improved greatly since the era of Nicklaus et al. If that were the case, more players would contend and win majors more often and we wouldn't have one man way out infront of the rest.

Back in the day, it appears there were 4 men that displayed the determination and drive to continue winning majors. Ok, Nicklaus outstripped the next best by 9 majors, but I doubt very much whether any one of the other three competitors in todays game can win another 6, unless they get the afore mentioned finger out of their proverbials before the Masters in April. Even then, it would still mean that there are another 54 majors in which Tiger can collate a massive record, without ever being severly tested by anyone other than himself.

If it is possible for one human man to have a season scoring average of 67.79 from 16 events (the next best is 69.42 in 21 events with Mickelson), then another man can. This A N Other just needs to find what it is between the ears that separates consistent winners from also rans and apply it, not be scared of applying it, not be scared of coming up short. If he comes up short, he must change something inside of himself so that he doesn't come up short. This is Tigers regimen. This has to be someone elses.

It also appears that a golfer does not have to play lots of events to score this well. 16 events in 2007 for Tiger? That's not that many. Go ask Charles Howell III with 22 events and an average of 70.63.

After all that, I am by no means stating that nobody is trying. All of the guys on Tour are trying their hearts out physically and mentally. The problem is they are trying the wrong things for themselves. They must be. If they were doing the right things, they'd challenge Tiger.

If and when they find the right thing, they will look at Tiger in a different light. They'll think he can be challenged. I think Rory Sabbatini had a good verbal attitude to Tiger recently. He openly stated that he thought Tiger could be beat. Then Tiger went out and crushed him and everyone else at Firestone. Maybe that verbal suggestion was the beginning of Mr Sabbatini trying to believe that Tiger is beatable. If so, he could be on the right track, but it takes more than saying it in a press conference, and it takes more than trying to believe it. Simply saying it to yourself is not enough. It needs to be said with club in hand, and the word "try" must be removed from the vocabulary. Other players need to believe it enough, all the time. If any player can do that, he will challenge Tiger.

If you take care of scoring, winning takes care of itself.