…do you think that should then count as a straight on Grand Slam…all four major tournaments in a row?
Personally, I don’t think so (not that it makes it any less of an achievement). It’s not like we calculate if a baseball player hit .400 over a 162 game span. The true Grand Slam has to be in one calendar year, no matter how arbitrary that may seem.
Nope, you’ve got to win all four tournaments in the same year to get the Grand Slam.
Some people tried that tack in tennis, but it didn’t fly there either.
The concept of the Grand Slam in Golf as it exists today really didn’t start until the era of Arnold Palmer, who was the first person who came close to winning the current four in one year.
Ben Hogan won the Masters, US and British Opens in one year, but didn’t want to play in the PGA. He would have had a good chance of winning it, but no one thought it a big deal at the time.
No, it definitely would NOT be a Grand Slam, just as leading the American League in batting and RBI’s this year and leading in Homers NEXT year would constitute a Triple Crown.
It WOULD, of course, be a hell of an accomplishment, something no golfer has ever done.
Well, I’d say it would be a Grand Slam (or Impregnable Quadrilateral, if you will…), with an asterisk. It also would clearly be superseded by anyone who does it in one year (a feat I thought would be impossible until mid-July). Regardless, it would be one hell of an accomplishment.
BTW, if memory serves, Hogan didn’t play the PGA the year he won three because it was very shortly after he won the Open (the real one, not the other one on the West side of the ocean). I had thought he didn’t play because he was still traveling back, but I think Venturi said during the PGA that he didn’t play because they played 36 holes just about every day, and Hogan would have been too tired to walk that much since it was several years after the bus accident.
Are you asking me what I think? Are you asking for my humble opinion?
I think you actually provided the factual answer in the OP. “The true Grand Slam has to be in one calendar year…” So, no, it would not be a Grand Slam, but that wouldn’t make it any less of an accomplishment.
Wait until Tiger gets a little more experience. They’ll have to make up a new term to describe something better than a grand slam. What’s a good name for winning everything, all the time, and making it not even close? That lies in Tiger’s future.
Maybe, maybe not. Have you ever heard of the “Sophomore Slump”? Basically, it says that if a Rookie has a great year, the smart money is to bet that his next year won’t be as good. This is due to a statistical factor of ‘regression to the mean’. Basically, the idea is that to have a great, career-high year you have to be very good AND very lucky. Tiger is the best there is, but Golf is somewhat of a statistical game, and luck does play a part.
He could easily have lost the PGA AND the Canadian Open, and people would be talking about what a disappointing year he had. He won the PGA in a shootout, after getting a couple of very lucky bounces to stay tied with Bob May. On one of them he hit the ball well to the right, and it hit the fringe of the green on a bit of a slope, bounced left, and stopped 5 feet from the pin. Yesterday at the Canadian, he made an extremely bad Tee Shot that went into the crowd, ricocheted off a kid’s head, and wound up back in the middle of the fairway. If it Ricocheted the other way, it could have gone out of bounds and he would have lost the tournament.
He’s a great golfer, but the skill level at the very top is extremely close. Tiger only ran away with one tournament (the British Open), and he won the Master’s fairly convincingly if I remember, but many of his other wins were by one or two strokes. One stroke out of 72 holes is nothing, and he could easily have lost those.
Tiger Woods did win the US Open this year by 15 strokes. He didn’t win the Masters this year. He won that in 1998 and he won by double digits there.
I think the win in the US Open was the most impressive. He was playing a difficult course (Pebble Beach), in difficult conditions (fog, then wind), and was far and away better than anyone else in the field. Nobody else broke par.
Whaddya mean, if? The man’s a god… or the closest thing to it in golf. They’re running out of superlatives for him.
I don’t think anyone would call a year in which he won the British and U.S. opens (handily, I might add) a disappointment.
No, most of his wins have not been by one stroke - hell in just the Majors he has blown people away in the Masters, the US Open, and the British Open. I recall reading just yesterday how he now owns or shares a scoring title in every tournament he’s won this year.
As to the OP. He has already won a Grand Slam. When someone wins all four in one year we’ll come up for a new term for it. Whether it’s a career Grand Slam, a continuous Grand Slam or THE Grand Slam, it’s an incredible achievement by anyone, let alone someone of his age. IMHO.
Heckfire, why not? The concept of the “Grand Slam” is a creation of sportswriters with column-inches to fill. There’s no PGA rule defining it. So why can’t the collective sports media (or us fans) simply say that winning all 4 tournaments consecutively counts, in the same calendar year or not? Golf is a year-round sport, after all - what does it really mean when December turns to January?
As an example of the media’s power to declare these things, I’ve already seen references to Woods having won the “Triple Crown” - the US, British, and Canadian Opens in the same year. I had never heard of that one before this year.
Bobby Jones is said to have won the Grand Slam, but that included the US and British AMATEURS against what would have had to be inferior competition.
If Woods wins the 2001 Masters, I’ll be happy to say he has won the Grand Slam.
My response to this is that Tiger is no rookie. He has been playing in the pros for four years now, and this would be well past his “Sophomore” status.
In the 8/28 Sports Illustrated issue, the cover story describes Woods’ efforts to improve his swing ever since his dramatic debut in the '97 Masters. Obviously, it’s a bit dramatic, but if there is any amount of truth to it, it seems to indicate that Tiger will be dominant for a long time. Basically, this is where his game is at, and he can only improve…
Just my 2 bits…
I believe Lee Trevino has done the same, and I think it was called that at the time, or shortly after.
Well, no. In Jones’ time, most of the best players were amateurs. Walter Hagen was the first pro who made being a pro respectable, at around the same time that Jones was tearing them up.
Which brings up the real question (IMHO bound…)–does Woods’ amateur record hold up to Jones’? I say, most emphatically, not.
As great as Tiger is, I have to say that I have watched practically none of the major golf tournaments this year as opposed to all of them as usual. It’s not a lot of fun (and many of my golf buddies agree) to watch Tiger kick the crap out of everyone else. And if he isn’t, instead of hearing about the guy who IS doing well, they complain about what’s wrong with Tiger. Jack Nicklaus himself cautioned that having just Tiger be so good will be bad for golf. Jack Nicklaus had Arnold Palmer and several other quality players as rivals. If no one steps up to challenge Tiger, golf is going to be worse off, not better.
The same thing ruined the NBA for me. Why would I bother to watch all those years when it was pretty much certain that Michael Jordan and the Bulls would win every time? If he didn’t “retire” to play baseball they would probably have won 8 years in a row. Unless you were a Bulls fan (God knows a lot of people jumped on their bandwagon), you couldn’t have been happy with that.
PS Here’s a sports-talk-radio X-files type conspiracy–you know how Tiger does not actually use the golf ball he endorses? Well, what if Nike made him an illegal ball, the USGA let him use it anyway since Tiger would make golf more popular (and Nike paid them mucho dinero to look the other way), and that’s why he won so much? Now that’s obviously ridiculous and probably wouldn’t even happen in an Oliver Stone movie but I bet would be a good sports talk radio host.
Just a note about the ball Tiger uses. NO pro tour golfer uses balls available over the counter in a pro shop. They all use balls and clubs manufactured especially for them. Tiger is no exception. Needless to say, both the USGA and the Tour are quite willing and often do test such balls and equipment for conformance with the rules.
Anyone who wants to try and hit the rock Tiger uses on a course is welcome to the attempt; I’ll stick with 100 compression balatas because I don’t put the same spin on a ball he does and I don’t swing a clubhead through the ball at in excess of 130 mph.
As to the Grand Slam, a few notes. Tiger won the Masters in 1997, not 1998. He would not have won the ‘Grand Slam’, but will probably be credited with having won something like it, since no one has ever won four of the things in a row.
Tiger Woods’ ball is not illegal. It’s just hard to buy. If a player were using a ball not approved for play by the USGA or the Royal and Ancient of St. Andrew’s, there would be severe penalties imposed on him.
All balls used in competition have to be preapproved by one of those two organizations. Usually the organization places a small insignia on the ball to indicate that the ball is OK. Greg Norman was disqualified from a tournament a few years ago because he was using balls that didn’t have the stamp on them. The balls were legal, but since they didn’t have the stamp on them to prove it, he had to be disqualified.
The golfers on the PGA and LPGA tours may not all be warm and fuzzy, but they are probably the most honest athletes around.
DSYoungEsq wrote:
A related question is: what is the highest number of consecutive majors entered won by one golfer?
This lets us include golfers from the early years, before there were four majors. Of course, the definition of ‘major’ has changed over the years. The Western Open was at one time considered a ‘major’.
The following players are candidates for three or more consecutive majors entered for victories. However, some of them may have entered intervening majors without winning; my information is incomplete. I am assuming the order Masters, US Open, British Open, PGA for each year of their existence.
4 consecutive victories
Tom Morris, Jr: 1868 Open, 1869 Open, 1870 Open, 1872 Open (no tournament in 1871)
3 consecutive victories
Jamie Anderson: 1877 Open, 1878 Open, 1879 Open
Robert Ferguson: 1880 Open, 1881 Open, 1882 Open
Harry Varden: 1898 Open, 1899 Open, 1900 US Open
Willie Anderson: 1903 US Open, 1904 US Open, 1905 US Open
Bobby Jones: 1929 US Open, 1930 Open, US Open
Ben Hogan: 1953 Open, US Open, Masters
Peter Thomson: 1954 Open, 1955 Open, 1956 Open
Tiger Woods: 2000 US Open, Open, PGA
Bill
BobT, I’d like a citation to authority on that assertion that 1a) The balls played in competition are marked as pre-approved, and 1b) Norman was disqualified for using unmarked balls.
I would check here http://www.usatoday.com/sports/golf/sgp/sgpe24.htm
The tournament in question was the 1997 Greater Hartford Open. However, I erred in saying that the balls had to have a USGA stamp. Norman’s problem was that he used balls which were stamped with a label from an experimental set. He didn’t use one with a label that was approved by the USGA.
Tiger had his sophomore slump. After winning 4 tournaments, including the record performance in the Masters in 97, he won only the Bell South in 98. Then he won 8 tournaments in 99, and 9 so far in 2000, including the 3 majors. He owns the scoring record in EVERY MAJOR CHAMPIONSHIP. That’s pretty damn dominant. The talent is NOT tight at the top. Usually the top ranked player has led by around 0.5 points. Tiger’s world ranking is 29.57, a record, #2 is at 11.76. When Duval held #1…he was at around 12. Tiger’s ranking is nearly 3 times higher than the next closest. It’s crazy. He’s won more money in the last 2 years than any other pro has in their entire career. He’s won 24 PGA tournaments in 4 years, the most of ANY active non-senior player. I think it’s safe to say he’s on his way to being the best golfer in history. He’s still got to show longevity in the sport, but damn…he follows up his PGA victory with an 11 shot lead at the NEC-Invitational, then follows that up with a win at the Canadian Open. Most of his victories have been blowouts, and when they haven’t been…he’s been pushed and has never cracked! It’s amazing. I just like to watch him to see what he’ll do next.
Tiger did have his sophomore slump, but he says it was because he was fixing his swing, and it worked. The world rankings can’t be used to compare players too far back, because they’ve only been around since the late '80’s and the formula has changed several times.
There’s obviously no question that Tiger’s whipping everyone right now. I go back and forth between whether the contenders are as strong as they used to be. Are Els, Lehman, Singh, Duval (one-time wonder, in my book), Mickelson, Montgomery, Clarke and several others the level of Jones’, Palmer’s, and Nicklaus’ competition? It strikes me that the fields certainly are a lot deeper these days, but I think that say, the top ten players of most other eras were far better as a group than the top ten today. (Tomorrow I’ll think differently, probably.)
As with all sports, it would be great if Jones, Hogan, Snead, Nelson, Player, Palmer, Nicklaus, Faldo, Seve and Tiger could play a few rounds together at their peak, with the same equipment. My guess is Hogan and Jones would probably give Tiger more than a run for his money. (Interesting sidebar–Mickelson hit some 1950’s drivers a year or two ago. He said he could hit them just as far, but his mishits which with today’s drivers go to 10 yards off-center, to the sides of the fairways, went 30 yards off-center, beyond the deep rough.)
If Tiger keeps it up for only a few more years it’ll be hard to deny he’s the best ever. He doesn’t make it much fun to watch, though. And besides, the game isn’t meant to be easy, even for the best.