Tiger spoiled us. My business partner and I were talking about speith the other day and he argued that if his career ended right now he'd be HOF. I'm not sure I buy that but the guy has a ton of time left. I doubt he goes Duval but he has serious holes in his game right now that he has to humble himself to correct. That being said, with his wedding and whatever other bullshit he had going on off the course last year he was never going to have a year like 2017 or 2016 or 2015. A professional athlete that is in an individual sport isn't going to gain strokes on the field by being distracted off the field. It just wasn't going to happen.
I think on the grander scale, you have Phil and Tiger that are HOF and are so far into the HOF that it makes everyone else look like they aren't getting in. However, Rory, Ernie, Brooks, Padraig, and Speith are probably all HOF worthy if their careers ended right now. Spieth and Brooks would probably be controversial, brooks especially. You'd probably throw DJ in that group too because he has won 20 tourneys with one being a major. Point being, we have to adjust our standards as the tiger/phil era comes to an end.
Jack was speaking about the fields in different eras the other day and he said that his era had a handful of great golfers but no depth. He said the tiger era was tiger and then everyone else. He said this era isn't massively excellent talent (not tiger level) at the top but is very deep and he's spot on.
All I have to say is the dude's name is Brandal Chamblee. The dude was born to make an ass out of himself.