Woods
He will joke that he spent so much time in the trees as a kid that he feels more comfortable there than in the fairway.

Embellishment, perhaps, but you get the sense that he welcomes the chance to extract himself from precarious positions, whether it be the deep greenside rough to a pin cut tight or the fairway bunker that left him a shot all over water when he won the Canadian Open in 2000.

The low, hard wedge that screams into the green, hops once, twice, then checks?

He loves it.

The little bump-and-run from the fringe with the 3-wood?

He’s got it.

Pitching wedges that hit hard and spin back?

Got it.

Pitching wedges that hit soft and with no spin?

He’s got that too.

It’s his power that people love; it’s his brilliant short-game touch that enables him to win.

Nicklaus
Imagine how good Nicklaus would have been had he been brilliant with the wedges. But it was arguably the weakest part of his game.

Fortunately, he hit so many fairways he had shortish irons in to a lot of greens and he more times than not was putting for birdie.

Click below to see how today's Tiger Woods compares to Jack Nicklaus in his prime. Ball-striking Creativity Level of competition Pressure Course management Driving Popularity Putting

Nicklaus never had to depend on the Houdini-like shots that have been popularized by players like Phil Mickelson and Woods.

No flop shots with the 60-degree lob wedge for the Golden Bear; he was more a bread-and-butter, fairways-and-greens sort of guy.

Oh, he could get it up and down if the situation called for it, but he rarely had to; he tended to be where he needed to be in the first place.

Part 4: Driving