Tiger Woods vs. Jack Nicklaus: who is the greatest player of all time? There has never been a better time to compare

"When he was hitting it bad, Jack would find a way to live with it," says Weiskopf. "Considering his talent and perfectionism, that took an incredible amount of patience. He just refused to get disgusted, and beat us with will."

All in all, says Player, "Jack's greatest strength was playing junk and scoring 68."

Woods probably plays less "junk," but he doesn't live with it quite as well. He seems by perfectionist temperament inclined to fight tendencies he doesn't like rather than working around them, as his relative lack of second-place finishes indicate. His most recent decision to curtail his work with Butch Harmon suggests he wants to be more self-reliant, in the Jones tradition. Without seeking help at this year's PGA, an out-of-sync Woods finished second in a major for the first time.

Style of play: Nicklaus' tee-to-green style was designed to reduce, not induce, internal stress. In anticipation of the control Jack would need to temper his power, Grout trained him to groove a softer-landing slight fade that made Nicklaus the straightest big hitter ever seen. When he did stray, he tended to play conservative recoveries. But even from the fairway, Nicklaus rarely shot directly at the pin, in part because he was not a great wedge or bunker player.

"In Jack's mind, his perfect iron shot was 18 feet left of the pin," says Miller. "His thinking was, `It takes all the danger out of play, and now I'm going to make the 18-footer.' "

At the 1967 U.S. Open at Baltusrol, Nicklaus hit 61 of 72 greens in regulation, believed to be a record for that championship. As late as 1980, at age 40, Nicklaus led the tour in greens in regulation and total driving.

"Jack seemed to go for broke only when he was behind at the end of a tournament, and it was so impressive," says Player. "We were probably lucky he didn't try to do it more often."

Woods plays a more psychologically wearing style. Because the modern golf ball is flying longer and straighter, he has more incentive to gamble off the tee and with his approaches, but misses leave him with more testing recoveries. Woods' three most recent major victories, however, were won in a more Nicklausian style. "Since 2000, I probably haven't improved that much physically," Woods says, "but my management is much better."

Putting: Nicklaus' approach to putting was the most vital way in which he saved his juice. Once on the green, he stressed correct speed on putts outside 15 feet to leave the shortest possible second putt. His goal of avoiding knee-knockers was helped by the slower green speeds of the '60s, '70s and even the '80s.

"I was a fine two-putter, but sometimes too defensive--too concerned about three-putting," he wrote in his autobiography, My Story.

Nicklaus didn't make every must-have six-footer, but never in 40 years of championship golf did he look less than poised over a big putt. "Jack was always a solid putter," says Davis Love III. "Then on the back nine on Sunday, he turned into the greatest putter ever."