At 28 years old, Tiger Woods has won eight majors. AP

Six days after Tiger Woods won the 2001 Masters, the fourth leg of his vaunted "Tiger Slam," he materialized at Eldorado Golf Club in Long Beach, Calif., to conduct a Tiger Woods Foundation youth clinic.

At the time, Woods was fond of using such occasions to make the same joke, namely: "I wouldn't be surprised if one of these kids winds up beating me some day."

But on this particular day it earned no laughs, not even a polite chuckle. So flawless was the golf Woods was then playing that it seemed unconscionable that anyone would beat him. Ever.

Now, on the far side of his near five-year run as World No. 1, it seems appropriate to commemorate how great Woods was at that moment -- the peak of his excellence.

Mere numbers don't tell the whole story, and never did. Remember the cartwheels we media types used to turn trying to locate a fitting standard of comparison?

We used to steer people into the history books, misleadingly resurrecting memories of Bobby Jones' half-am Grand Slam, and Byron Nelson's military-exemption enabled run of 11 straight wins in 1945.

Closer to the mark were recollections of Ben Hogan's 1953 three-major season, and Jack Nicklaus capturing seven of his first 19 majors as a professional.

Still, those accomplishments were shady approximations. As he arrived in California that Saturday, Woods had won five of the previous six majors, and was on pace to surpass Nicklaus's 20 career majors by the time he was 29 years old.

With a nod toward the atmosphere of those youth clinics, we might recall a scene from the film Searching for Bobby Fischer, in which Joe Mantegna's character, Fred Waitzkin, tells young Josh's schoolteacher to cut out the analogies to other kiddie games, and compare his son's chess genius to something that makes sense. Golf didn't serve as a good comparison, and neither did any other sport (despite the storied careers of Wayne Gretzky and Michael Jordan). At that point in time, Tiger was better at golf than Donald Trump was at real estate. Better than Churchill was at statesmanship. Better than Mozart was at composing music. No superlative was too far out.

What I'll remember most about that period is the shotmaking exhibition that served as the centerpiece of that day's activities in Long Beach. To be sure, it included a few goofy parlor tricks, like sailing a big hook over the heads of nearby photographers, making it bend some 70 yards toward its target.

But the rest of the show was a dead-serious demonstration of shots Tiger had added to his arsenal, specifically for major championship venues: the stinger two-iron he relied on to avoid each and every one of St. Andrews' bunkers, for example, and the sweeping draw and tight little cut he employed off the 15th and 18th tees at Augusta. By the end of his display, Tiger had hit about 75 shots, each aimed at a specific driving range yardage sign. Uncannily, he landed all but two of them within five or 10 feet of its mark. Never had I seen a man so utterly in control of his golf ball.

Will we ever see such perfection again? In answering that question, it bears noting that Tiger's run of 334 weeks at No. 1 was not without precedent: it was only at this year's PGA that he eclipsed Greg Norman's record of 331. That doesn't necessarily mean that Norman's period of excellence was the equal of Tiger's. It shows, at the very least, that it's possible for mere mortals to put miles of distance between themselves and their peers for a considerable amount of time.

But the kind of genius that Tiger brought us in 2000 and 2001? About as likely, I think, as the second coming of Bobby Fischer.