The energy flux from the wind to ocean inertial motions is estimated using three wind products in comparison to the benchmark NCEP winds: (1) corrected NCEP winds, based on scatterometer measurements (Large and Yeager, 2004), increase the energy flux by 50% globally and by 30% at mid-latitudes, (2) blended QSCAT/NCEP winds double the energy flux at mid-latitudes, and lead to much larger increases at high latitudes and near the equator, (3) enhanced NCEP winds in the North Atlantic Ocean, through a kinematic reanalysis procedure (Swail and Cox, 2000), increase the energy flux by 30%. We conclude that estimates of the energy fluxes are quite sensitive to wind errors and spatial resolution. NCEP winds provide a lower bound estimate of wind energy flux into ocean near-inertial motions.