I assume Wood’s next tourney will be The Memorial at J. Friggin’ Nicklaus’ course in Ohio in 2 weeks. Woods has won it… 5 count 'em 5 times… including last year’s. Then the US Open.
Funny how so many people were saying that the other players had caught up to Tiger, and he would never dominate again. Now that he’s dominating, the other players are chumps again. People would rather admit that they were wrong about everybody else than admit they were wrong about Tiger, but he really is that good.
And I wouldn’t count Rory out so soon. Don’t forget he was missing cuts right and left last year, but then he started playing brilliant golf, breaking Jack’s scoring record in the PGA, and winning a couple of very strong FedEx playoff events. He’s the real deal; he just isn’t as consistent as Tiger.
Right now, I think Rory’s best is still a little better than Tiger’s best, but Tiger’s off weeks are better than Rory’s off weeks.
But that’s right now. Rory is still very young, and Tiger is still improving, as shown by his ability to hit two perfect draws to close out the tournament on the 72nd hole yesterday (as Brandel Chamblee could have told you, he wasn’t able to hit a draw just a few weeks ago). It will be very interesting to watch both players’ progress in honing their games. If either of them are on, the rest of the field will be playing for second. If both of them are playing well the same week, then we might get some great duels.
I guess this is at the heart of my dislike of Tiger (in addition to my thinking him an asshole - independent of his sexual/marital activities.)
As a young golf fan in the 60s-70s, it seemed as though hardly a week would go by without the titans battling it out down the stretch. Nicklaus, Player, Watson, Trevino week in and week out, year in and year out. Someone like Green or Irwin could consistently throw up a couple of outrageous tourneys per year, and someone like Miller would have a couple of unbeatable seasons.
But when Tiger is at his best, he wins half the tourneys he enters. Yes, he is an amazing golfer. Yes, when he is on he is the most dominating athlete ever. Yes, he is NEVER out of a hole/round/tournament, no matter how much trouble he is in at some point. But IMO - and I realize I am in the vast minority on this - having one guy dominate so predictably makes for boring golf.
What other superstars have battled with Tiger? Y.E. Yang? Rocco? Sergio a couple of decades ago at Medinah? So yeah - I am perversely criticizing Tiger for being so much better than everyone else, as well as criticizing everyone else for not stepping up.
I know ratings soar when Tiger is in a tourney, and even moreso if he is in contention on Sunday. In countless ways, Tiger has been fantastic for golf. But for my viewing pleasure, I far prefer the drama of a Tigerless tourney.
Chicken and egg Tony, potato, potaato. You see Tiger win and it’s because of his awesome talent. I see Tiger win, and while yes he has been great (and still can be, on occasion), I see him winning more because other people fall apart when things are close. This isn’t like 2000-2001 when he is lapping the entire field twice. Heck you yourself admitted as much when you said above that people have to play their best to beat him, but in trying to do so, they fail. Funny how nerves and choking never stopped the likes of Trevino or Watson from beating Jack when things were tight, isn’t it? Instead they would roll in long putts or chip in from off the green when the chips were down-when was the last time someone beat Tiger by pulling off one of those miracle shots (as in the ones which kept beating Greg Norman)? Don’t you find that a bit…odd?
No, what I find odd is the argument that Jack > Tiger because so many people beat him.
That’s certainly not an argument I ever made. Nor would I ever say Jack or Tiger were greater than each other, because I don’t know how that could be assessed. I sure would’ve liked to see them go head to head in their respective primes, tho.
Things I feel I can say with some comfort:
-Tiger has been more more dominant at various points of his career and for a longer time than Jack ever was. Whether that is due to Tiger being better than Jack, the level of competition, or a combination of the two, I don’t know.
-Jack has the most majors. But in no way did he dominate golf in any way approaching Tiger’s dominance.
-I liked Jack better than I like Tiger. As such, I hope Tiger does not reach/pass Jack’s majors. Hell, he’s going to have just about every other record by the time he finishes. But, even if he does, I’ll still have liked Jack better.
-I personaly do not enjoy any sport when one party so clearly dominates. As a longtime Bulls/NBA fan, I found myself getting bored as the Bulls piled up their 5th and 6th championships. As awesome as Jordan and the team were throughout the run, I found it far more exciting as they had to claw their way past Cleveland, Boston, and Detroit…
My suspicion is that Tiger is a freak of nature; I suspect he would have dominated any era of golf (tho I suspect his dominance would have been somewhat less in several earlier eras. Mickelson is impressive, but he is no Snead, Hogan, Nelson…) Who knows - if Tiger didn’t exist, perhaps we would be praising the drama of battles between the titans Mickleson, Singh, etc…
Also, could Tiger have even existed in previous eras? Were there athletes trained from the crib in earlier times? Does some portion of Tiger’s success depend on modern equipment and golf course design?
You honestly and truly don’t. get. it. I’m through wasting my time with you.
Promise?
Of course I’m well aware of the PGA’s racist history, but that is not at all what I was talking about.
I think every major sport had some racial restrictions at some time or another. Instead, I was suggesting a potential impact of the manner in which youth are trained, and the quality and availability of equipment and facilities.
Well, of course it was different back then. That’s one of the things the diehards don’t get, while they’re saying Tiger fans don’t get anything.
Last week during one of the pre-game shows for the Players, somebody on TGC was talking about how Rory’s ball striking had improved so quickly this year. I forget the numbers, but they said when he first switched to Nike, his spin rate and launch angle on his drives was X and he couldn’t hit a fairway, but he’s been working with the techs and now has it to Y, and his driving is great again.
They couldn’t even measure spin rate and launch angle in the 60’s. All they could do was go to the range and hit balls, and some players didn’t even do much of that. Without modern technology, Rory might have struggled for years trying to figure out what was wrong.
Of course, the diehards will say that if the players of the Jack era had access to the same type of technology, then they would have been much better, too. And that’s right, they would. But they didn’t. So only a handful of players managed to play as well as if they had access to modern technology. The rest of them didn’t, which made for weaker fields.
Say you have two groups of 100 guys, with equal innate talent for golf.
But in Group #1, how they learn golf is just random. A few lucky ones have really good coaches, but for most, maybe their dad teaches them, maybe their local mediocre club pro teaches them, or maybe they just learn by reading books, or watching other players. How many of the 100 will become as good as they can be?
You might have a Hogan in the group, who practices hour after hour (while the other guys are rolling their eyes at him), and eventually develops a great swing after many years of trial and error. You might have a Snead in the group, who just happens to have a great natural swing. You might have a few guys in the group who are lucky enough to have dads or club pros who are really good at teaching. But most of those guys are not going to play as well as they could, and certainly not without a long apprenticeship.
Group #2, everybody gets coached by guys who know all about swing theory, who know how to recognize which type of swing is best for a given player, who know how to teach that swing, and who have all kinds of computer and video equipment to show a guy immediately what happens when he does this, and what changes when he does that. Launch angle, spin rate, clubhead speed, apex height, all measured and optimized. And when they’re off their game, they have a swing coach and a short game coach and a putting coach and a head coach to get them back on the beam, and they have equipment techs that can tell them exactly what their ball is doing, and video and radar and all kinds of stuff to show them where they’re going wrong.
The second group, assuming they work just as hard, is going to have almost all 100 golfers playing with a swing that’s optimal for their physical talent, achieving close to their full potential.
Now, which 100 players would make a harder field to win against?
Even if the talent pools are the same size, which they aren’t, the number of golfers who are playing at their full potential is MUCH higher today than it was 50 years ago. It’s true that Miller Barber or Mason Rudolf or whoever might have been harder to beat if he had the same access to technology that Rory has, but he didn’t. So Jack had to beat a bunch of guys playing at 70% of their potential, while Tiger has to beat a bunch of guys playing at 95% of their potential.
It doesn’t mean Tiger would have beaten Jack; that’s something we can never know. But it means that in a game where even very good players only win 10% of the time, and somebody from outside the top ten wins way more often than somebody from inside, that it’s much harder to win against the fields of today than it was 50 years ago. And it means that 50 years ago, the handful of golfers who were lucky enough to play to their full potential were men among boys, racking up wins, while today, they have to beat almost a full field of players at their full potential.
Super Mario belongs in category #4. He was never the same post-Hodgkins.
And in another sport, I’d say Michelle Kwan belongs in categories 3 and 4. (the scoring system changed, rewarding athleticism over artistry+she had a bum hip at the end)
I would like to ask a serious question of the guys who think that this discussion should begin and end with how many majors Jack’s competition won. I realize you’re all experts on golf history, but bear with me as I give a little background for the newbies who may have just stumbled into this thread.
Other than seniors way past their prime, Gary Player won more majors (9) than anyone else Jack played against. He won his first at Muirfield, in 1959, three years before Jack turned pro.
Today, 2 of the top 5 players in the world rankings are Americans. Four of the top ten, 10 of the top 20, 19 of the top 40, 24 of the top 50. So it seems to be pretty evenly distributed that half of the best players in the world are Americans.
I think it’s very safe to say that around 1960, it was at least half, and probably more. So you would expect a major field to be at least half Americans.
When Gary Player won the 1959 Open Championship, there were just three Americans in the field, and if they had had world rankings then, probably none of them would have been in the top 500. The low American was Bob Sweeney, a 48-year old amateur who missed the cut by 3. The other two Americans were Willie Goggin, age 52, and Robert Watson, who is so obscure I can’t find anything definite about him, but he might have been a club pro from Florida.
There was only one Australian in the field, Peter Thomson. He was a great champion, but he had a bad week, and finished T23. It was one of only three times he finished out of the top ten in the Open from 1951 through 1971. Just as an aside, Thomson played only one Masters, zero US Opens, and zero PGAs during Jack’s entire pro career.
In those days, everybody had to go through a 36-hole local qualifier before playing in the Open. No exceptions, not even for the defending champ. So if you lived in the US or Australia or South Africa, you were looking at very tiring and expensive travel just to play in the qualifier, with no guarantee that you would get to play for the small purse that the Open offered. First prize was just $2800, compared to $12,000 for the US Open that year, and $15,000 for the Masters. You would very likely lose money on the trip if you didn’t win the title.
The result was that almost all the players were Europeans. To win the Open title, Gary Player had to hold off Fred Bullock, a British journeyman, and the immortal Flory Van Donck of Belgium, who tied for second.
Player butchered the last hole, three-putting for a double bogey six. He was despondent after his round, saying, “That six has cost me the Open and a lot more besides.” He went back to his hotel, convinced he had blown it.
But two hours later, the phone rang and he was told to come back to the course, because Bullock and Van Donck had also made a mess of the last hole, and Player was the 1959 Open champ. His first of nine major wins.
So my question is this: Even if you don’t think that the larger talent pools and huge money and better training and coaching have improved the quality of the top 100 golfers in the world since 1959, can you honestly deny that all four of Tiger’s wins this year were against stronger competition than Gary Player beat in his first major win, with only one Australian and zero world class Americans in the field?
In fact, with the possible exception of the 30-man Hyundai, have any of this year’s PGA events had weaker fields than that Open?
I think you make a really valid point here. Gives me something to think about. Thanks.
I readily acknowledge that Tiger is a unique phenomena. I just don’t like him. And I don’t find such dominance (and the field’s reaction) entertaining. Just my opinion.
As far as your most recent post - gotta admit trying to read it kinda made my eyes glaze over. 
Obviously, Gary Player was a fraud as a player in 1959. He won the British Open Championship w/o any of the best players of the American PGA in the field.
Nevermind that he already won a American PGA Tournament earlier that year and finished 2nd in the US Open in 1958. Gary Player was obviously a fraud in 1959.
Rocco Mediate said something interesting in his interview with David Feherty the other night. He said everybody hits it great with the modern equipment.
Majors are the is the measuring stick no matter what anyone thinks. Tennis Grand Slams are the standard in Tennis.
Pete Sampras (and later Roger Federer) broke the Ken Rosewall’s Grand Slam Singles in Tennis
Steffi Graf broke Margaret Court’s Grand Slam Singles record.
Was there any Pete Sampras fans trying to minimize Ken Rosewall’s record because many of his championships were won in the non-Open era and in Australia?
Before Steffi Graf broke Margaret Court record, was there anyone trying to dismiss her Australian Tennis Championship and in the non-Open era?
Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s Homerun record, later broken by Bonds
Pete Rose broke Ty Cobb’s career Base hit
Ichiro Suzuki broke George Sisler’s single season record.
If the game progresses with more and better competition in golf, it ought to progress in other sports like tennis and baseball. I am sure I could cite examples in football, hockey, and basketball if I knew those sports better.
So maybe the greatest player is someone like Harry Vardon - or maybe Old or Young Tom Morris! Heck, gotta give it up for someone who could shoot in the 70s on a goat track in bad weather hitting a sack of feathers or a lump of rubber with little more than a twisted stick. 
I’m old enough to have grown up with persimmon woods, but I’ve often wondered how to assess the game the REAL old-timers played. You read something like “The Greatest Game” and they talk about them blasting monster towering drives with primitive balls and sticks, and dropping putts from all over on greens mown by sheep. Any thoughts on how one can even assess the game played in the 1800s to 1920 or so?
No doubt that there was some hyperbole and poetic license when writing these books.
I wonder what Hogan would have done with modern equipment. Heck, what would have Hogan done with just a camcorder and a monitor to get near instant feedback on his swing.
No modern player that I know obsesses over Vardon’s Swing (or Jones or Hagen). But they do obsess over Hogan’s swing and some players swing look a lot like Nelson’s swing.
I am not sure how the Pre WWII era would have done with modern equipment, but I am pretty sure the great players of post WWII until the metal wood era would be great players with the technology improvements. You got to remember that not only has actual golf equipment has improved enormously but modern technology has improved agronomy, and instruction.
Remember practice in the pre computer age involved a player, a piece of turf and kid with a shag bag.
Now players are getting their swing analyzed by computer to determine lie and loft, launch angles, optimum spin rates.
You’re slipping. Usually, you don’t start flailing at straw men like this for two or three cycles. Now you’re doing it right off the bat.
I have never called Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Billy Casper, or any other golfer a fraud. I think the closest I ever came was when I called Rickie Fowler overrated, back before he had any wins. In fact, I’ve never even said that any of the greats of previous eras couldn’t beat Tiger, given the same technology. It’s just unknowable. All I’ve ever said was that the fields are deeper now, and that makes it harder to win.
Player, especially, is the last guy I would call a fraud, because he was the only international player to go through the onerous travel required to play every American major he could. I honestly don’t know how he did it, with the cards stacked against him the way they were. It wasn’t just the travel time and expense; it was also the exclusionary policies of American golf — some deliberate, some just short-sighted.
It’s not Gary’s or Arnie’s or Jack’s fault that the majors of their era had 40 to 60 percent of the top golfers missing from the field; all they could do was play against whoever showed up. But it’s not my fault, either, and when you say Gary Player is clearly better than Phil Mickelson because he has nine majors to four, I have to call bullshit. There is no way to know whether Gary was better or worse than Phil, but it is OBVIOUS that the fields he played against were weaker.
Phil faced more world class players in his Waste Management wins than Player did in his British Opens. That’s just a fact, and it’s relevant.
As for tennis, I know nothing about it. So you’re right, I don’t pay any attention to it except during Wimbledon and the US Open, and then only for the highlights. If you asked me who were the best tennis players of all time, my answer would be based on the very, very limited knowledge I have of their major records.
And if it turned out that you were an avid tennis fan, and could cite all kinds of reasons why there was more to a tennis career than four weeks a year, I would defer to your knowledge of the game. And if you had valid reasons to show that even in the majors, tennis competition was much weaker when Laver or whoever played, then I would look at your evidence. If it turned out that some of his majors were won in Australia with no Americans in the field, at a time when American tennis was the world’s strongest, I would concede that those majors should be discounted. Not ignored, but discounted. And it would have nothing to do with calling Laver a fraud; it would just be an acknowledgment of the facts.
So you’re right — most people only look at majors in golf. But most people don’t follow golf closely. Diehard Jack fans frequently accuse Tiger fans of knowing nothing about golf, thinking golf began in 1996, etc. But then, like you, they turn around and use the most simplistic measurement possible when evaluating 20-year careers. Joe had four major wins, Jim had two, so Joe was better than Jim. You only look at six weeks out of 20 years.
That is what I’d do when evaluating tennis players, because I know nothing about tennis. And it’s what somebody who knows nothing about golf would do. If you want to put yourself in that class, I won’t disagree.
Golf is no different than any other sport, records are meant to be broken over time, but comparisons can be quite useless across eras. I mean its funny, nobody complains about the 100m record being broken, because we understand people are different, equipment is different. But in other sports all we want to do is compare eras for some reason.
In sports we can objectively measure, what happens is exactly what you would expect to happen — when you have larger talent pools and better training and coaching, people run faster, jump higher, lift more, and swim faster. Even once in a lifetime anomolies, like Bob Beamon’s long jump record, have been beaten.
Yet for some reason, people persist in believing that in sports where you compete against an opponent, i.e. sports where there is no objective measurement like the tape or the clock, the old-timers are just as good as today. I know guys who still maintain that Jack Dempsey was the greatest heavyweight of all time. But he wouldn’t even be a heavyweight today. He weighed about 175 when he won the title. In his day, guys weighing over 200, like Willard, were overweight and clumsy. Today, there are so many cut, fast, 230-pounders that they had to make a new weight class to keep guys under 200 pounds from getting killed. Lennox Lewis would have destroyed Dempsey.
It’s just obvious. Don Schollander was the hero of the 1964 Olympics, winning four gold medals, more than any other athlete. He broke the world record in the 400 meter freestyle, with a time of 4:12.2.
The gold medal winner in the recent London Olympics didn’t set a world record, but still beat Schollander handily, with a time of 4:01.45. Ten seconds is a huge margin in swimming.
OOPS! I made a mistake. That 4:01.45 was for the WOMEN’S gold medal winner at London. The male champion, Sun Yang, also didn’t break the world record, but his time was 3:40.14. He would have had time to towel off and call his mom before Schollander finished. The bronze medalist finished in 3:44.69, also a time zone ahead of Schollander.
That doesn’t make Schollander a fraud. He beat the guys he swam against, and that’s all you can ask of him. And he has more gold medals than Yang. But it doesn’t change the fact that Yang would have to give Schollander a 50-yard head start to make it competitive.
If you ask who compiled the greatest record in swimming, it’s not Yang. It might not even be Michael Phelps, with his 18 or whatever gold medals. It might be Johnny Weissmuller, who was undefeated his entire career, and set a slew of Olympic and world records back when Bobby Jones was winning US Opens.
But if you ask who is the best swimmer of all time, then you have to take the current guys. Spitz and Schollander and Weissmuller were great champions, but they just weren’t as fast as Yang.
Mensa and DiFool would have us believe that golf is the only sport where, in spite of the larger talent pools, vastly more money attracting athletes to golf, vastly more international competition, and all the improvements in training and coaching and technology, the players have actually gotten worse over the last 50 years.
They can’t give any reason for it. They just think there was something in the water or something that resulted in a dozen super genetically gifted golfers in the Jack era, but only one since then.
It really boggles the mind.