Something I wonder about

[gol4pro]

Tiger has said time and time again that he is always trying to get better. After he won the 97 Masters by 12 shots or whatever, he changed his swing, and eventually catapulted himself to a level that promised to be beyond what anyone has ever seen.

It began paying off at the 99 PGA where he won his second major. Then in 2000 he accomplishes the Career Slam at a sickeningly young age (24 or something) and wins the 2001 Masters to complete the Tiger Slam... all within an 18 month period. IMO, this is arguably the most dominant individual sports performance of the last 50 years.

Then he went out and changed his swing again. Not to say that the last 5 years have been terrible or even mediocre for Tiger, but he hasn't had a stretch that has come close to equalling his fall 99-spring 2001 performance.

It doesn't take a statistician to see that Tiger's edge over the field has gradually decreased since this period. I guess my question is, had Tiger not changed his swing after 2001, how much better would he have been? Thoughts?