What happened in 1965 Ryder Cup with a European player beating Americans on a links course. I suspect it was the first or 2nd time that January, Littler, Casper had ever played links golfs. (Royal Birkdale) What a ridiculous argument.
Peter Alliss hardly traveled to the US? and missed the Masters Cut twice when he did? So fricking what. I wonder how much practice and playing Alliss did during the winter in England warming up to the Masters.
yes, few Americans played the BOC in the 1960’s. It is not like he was beating players on both sides of the Atlantic. From 1963-1980 in the BOC, he got beat a total of ~36 times by ~24 different players. 18 years and only 24 different players beat him. When he wasn’t winning, he was finishing in the top 3 nearly every year.
And he only won 70 times on this side of the Atlantic.
I keep hearing that fields are so much better these days, with more players capable of winning. Heck three years ago, One of Jack’s main rivals lost the BOC in a playoff. A PLAYOFF. at age 59. Against Tiger’s peers.
This past week, a 52 yr old, at least 100 lbs overweight, finished T9th in the BoC. It is not like Mark Calcavecchia is the best player on the Senior Tour. Good player, but not the best. I would almost be willing to bet even money that he finishes worst the Sr British Open this week.
IMO, The players of this era are not any better. The equipment is much better which has made a bunch of average players appear better than they are.
When I finally got to see the Sports section of the newspaper on Monday, I was pleasantly surprised that the headline didn’t read “TECHNICALLY, ELS WINS, BUT TIGER STILL LURKING.”
As always, the whole weekend, headlines and even Internet sport sites started by telling us how TIger did… as if the guy who was actually in the lead didn’t matter!
I think you are on to something. Probably a lot less than Peter Thomson did during the summer in Australia. How it helps your case, though, is not very clear.
Right. A lot of golf fans think that their sport is unique because the players call penalties on themselves. But what REALLY makes it unique is that it’s the only sport where the athletes of today are not clearly better than the athletes of 50 years ago. Heck, they’re probably worse. The decline is obvious when you stand Miller Barber next to Camilo Villegas.
But that doesn’t mean that the fields aren’t stronger. As you said, the equipment compensates for skill. And modern coaching, video analysis, impact analysis, etc. allows every player, from the exceptionally talented on down, to play to his full potential by the time he’s out of college, rather than having to spend 20 years digging it out of the dirt by trial and error like Hogan did.
The effect is to make it harder for the best players to separate themselves from the pack. It’s harder to win, it’s much harder to win frequently, and it’s much, much harder to dominate.
And all of that, plus the big money that persuades more athletes to make golf their primary sport, rather than just attracting the guys who couldn’t play “real” sports, is why Jack Nicklaus said that the middle of the pack (in 1996, when he wrote his book) was as good as the top players in his day.