Ernie Els
For all his worldy skills, the Big Easy still makes things very hard on himself, mostly because he too often puts his golf ball in impossible spots. He's perhaps the most resilient golfer since Greg Norman, a remarkable bounce-back personality, but there's a tendency to not finish off the job and that smacks of poor game plans as much as execution. He gets away with it, however, because nobody has a better short game.

Retief Goosen
He played his first 14 holes of Bay Hill in 7-over, hitting it sideways and no better than the eighth-place finisher in the club championship. If there was a bad spot to go, Goosen went. And then he played then next 58 holes in 12-under and finished fourth. "He's funny like that," said Els, his longtime friend. The only thing is, it's tough to turn it on and off out on the PGA Tour and while Goosen has more fire in him than he gets credit for, you would insist that he doesn't really bring a thinking-man's game plan to the golf course, at least not like Tiger Woods, who is the king of this department.

Phil Mickelson
Truly a foreign subject to him. To give him his due, he factored this part of the game into his agenda for 2004 and it paid of handsomely with a Masters win, but it appears as if it's once again not a priority. But he brought it back a bit for Augusta this year. Who has ever succeeded in correctly guessing what the left-hander is thinking? Ignoring 2004, it's safe to say that there's never been a pin he didn't attack, never been a trouble spot he ever played away from. The flop shot off those tightly-mowed false fronts was never part of Bobby Jones' thinking when he helped come up with Augusta National, but Lefty has tried to work it in from time to time. He too often plays as if he can simply KO a golf course with his power.

Click on a category below to see how the world's best golfers match up Ball-striker Creativity Popularity Pressure Vote: Rate 'em Course management Head-to-head Preparation Putting The ‘Next 10’

Vijay Singh
There's a part of me that thinks Singh doesn't even think about course management, that he simply stands up and hits it as long and as straight as he can, chases it, and does it again. He employs deft course management by osmosis, by simply hitting it where he's trained to. The ball goes where he wants it to, because his swing is so trained. He doesn't seem to examine shots quite like the others, mostly because I don't think he ever envisions the ball going anywhere but straight, that's why he goes at pins all the time.

Tiger Woods
You want strong endorsements. How about two guys who had their share of head-to-head encounters with none other than Jack Nicklaus? We submit for testimony Gary Player: "Tiger Woods is the smartest player since Jack Nicklaus." Next witness, Lee Trevino. "Jack won more with his mind than his power. Tiger Woods is like that, too." Sure, Woods will be daring at times, confident that his short game can get him out of trouble, but he rarely short-sides himself and it's rare when he misses to the wrong spot of a fairway or green.

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Part 3: Creativity

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