Tiger Woods turns 39, needs 2015 major win to remain even with Jack Nicklaus

Tiger Woods, as even the most occasional of golf enthusiasts is well aware, has made it his life’s goal to break Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 major championship titles. Now that the former world No. 1 is a wedge shot short of the big 4-0 (he turned 39 Dec. 30), what might the golf world expect from the aging, injury-plagued superstar who’s coming off his worst season as a professional?

Specifically -- since speculation about whether he’ll overtake Nicklaus’ mark will likely continue until he hangs up his spikes, and he regularly compares himself favorably to the leader in the clubhouse -- how does Woods today stack up to the 39-year-old Golden Bear?

“Jack did it [earned his 18th major triumph] at 46, right?” Woods asked reporters ahead of the 2012 U.S. Open. “So I’ve got 10 [years].”

Well, stuck on 14 since he famously won the 2008 U.S. Open on one leg, Woods now has eight (years) if he’s to etch his name in the majors archives by the time he’s 46.

“It can be done,” he said two and a half years ago. “We can play for a very long time.”

“Every other sport you’re done at my age, or younger. You know, in golf you can still win golf tournaments in your 50s, and guys have done it,” he said. “Probably the more difficult thing is that you can still finish top 10, top fives, but you’re probably just not quite as efficient as you need to be to win golf tournaments. But you can still be there.”

Nicklaus, for his part, has regularly observed that he believes Woods can top his achievement -- if the former world No. 1 is fit.

And therein lies the rub.

“If he’s healthy, I think Tiger’s got 10-plus years to play top-quality tournament golf,” Nicklaus remarked in May. “I’ve said many times, he’s got a little over 40 tournaments to play the major championships, he’s only got to win five to pass my record. As good a player as he is, I don’t think that should be a big deal.”

After skipping this year’s Masters and U.S. Open with a bad back, shooting one decent score at the British Open, bombing out of the PGA, and turning the calendar on another year, though, “it” has become a big deal. The numbers of golf watchers -- other than Nicklaus, when the cameras are rolling, and Woods rooter, John Daly -- who believe Woods will win another major, let alone five, are shrinking, as is Woods’ window.

Indeed, if the challenger is to remain even with the champ in the wins column, Woods will have to do something in 2015 that the Golden Bear was unable to accomplish: grab at least one grand slam event at age 39. Nicklaus compiled 15 major trophies by the time he was 38 but he was shut out in 1979.

Woods won his 14th elite event in 2008 and saw his 0-fer drought stretch to six-plus seasons and counting when he missed the cut at the PGA Championship in August.

Two categories that Woods would, no doubt, be happy to cede the lead to Jack are MCs and DNPs at the majors. By the time he was 39, Nicklaus had missed as many major cuts as tournaments -- four. Woods, after bombing out of the PGA, was also at four missed cuts but, thanks to his numerous health issues, had skipped seven big events.

These stats from the Associated Press’ Doug Ferguson only add substance to the narrative of how far Woods has fallen off the majors pace: five top-five finishes in 16 majors played since 2010 and no sub-70 final-round scores since the 2011 Masters.

Woods, who unveiled his much-praised new/old swing and leaner physique (as well as a shockingly horrendous short game) earlier this month at the Hero World Golf Challenge, may have scuffled through the worst year of his career but he is just a season beyond a major-less but five-win campaign. Still, last year he finished just three of the eight events he started because of a bad back that made him appear decades older than his birth certificate would indicate.

He also has nearly 20 years of professional wear and tear on his 39-year-old body. Woods may like to remind us that Nicklaus captured his final major when he was 46, but what he neglects to note is that No. 18 came after a six-year drought.

Nicklaus even told Golf Digest about that time that he “wasn’t really a golfer anymore.” Even if Woods’ game rebounds next year, the question will remain as to how well his much-injured framework will endure for the next seven-odd years.

About what the new year portends for the man of the hour, Woods looked forward to what he hoped would be an affliction-free countdown to 40.

“As for my 2015 golf season, I’m mostly excited about being healthy again,” he wrote last week in his annual holiday blog. “I’ve struggled for the past year-and-half with my back, and it showed in my results. Even though I won five times two years ago, it was hit or miss some weeks and got progressively worse.

“Now that it feels healthy, strong and stable, it’s fun to be able to play with my kids again, to play soccer and run around with them, shoot hoops … things that I used to do and took for granted,” Woods typed. “For anybody who has ever had a bad back with nerve damage, it’s downright debilitating. To not feel that is finally just incredible relief.”

On that hopeful note, happy 39th, Tiger Woods.