So - is he going to win this week? I’d have to think this would be a good chance for him. But he’s been whining about the greens…
Another guy and I pick 4 players each and get points for being in the top 10 after each round. This week I’ve got Tiger, Senson, Day and Keegan. I picked first and took Tiger. Went a long time refusing to pick him just cause I didliked him, but lost way too many bets. Even when he doesn’t win, he’s good for being in the top 10 after several rounds.
He’d better hope this is his throwaway round, cause several other guys appear to have come to play.
Did all of Snead’s wins have a cut? That also influences the legitimacy of the win.
Why? If you win the tournament, you have finished in the money.
I’m no expert, but I think in the PGA, you have to count all four rounds.
It’s easier to win IMO when you don’t have to worry about a cut.
Why? Seems to me that if you have a shot at winning, the cut could be at the top 25 and ties and it wouldn’t make a whit of difference.
Also, I’d imagine at least some of Tiger’s wins came in no-cut events.
The season opener for example - tho not sure how that counts. Or the season ending championship.
I think Tiger went some insane number of tourneys w/o missing a cut - further proof for those who want to argue he is the best ever.
I don’t know the issue of Snead having had to make cuts is terribly relevant. The best players have off weeks. I don’t see whether they miss the cut or finish down the leaderboard being of any significant difference.
Tony, I know you make a good case contending Tiger got his wins against far stiffer competition. Have you tried to calculate the other side as well? Whether Tiger - as a modern golfer - has factors in his favor making things easier than his predecessors? I don’t have an opinion, just curious, as you seem to have given this much thought.
-The modern pro has a lot more money, has a lot of people doing things for him, has people making equipment just for him, benefits from training/medical/diet/etc, and play perfectly manicured courses.
-Also, after banking the first 10 million or so, does it actually get easier to win, knowing that you are financially set for life?
-Along the same lines, is it easier for Tiger to win a big event now - knowing his rep is already established - as opposed to some guy eager to win a big event to MAKE his rep?
I don’t think such factors can be definitively answered, but they sure seem possibly relevant to any discussion of athletes from different eras.
Tiger PGA Tour wins in no Cut events.
18 WGC’s
2 Mercedes (Tournament of Champions)
2 BMW (playoff events)
2 Tour Championships
24 PGA Tour wins in No Cut events
I still don’t see why anybody cares about no-cut events in the context of career wins. Other things being equal, I would think having a cut makes it easier to win, because you only have half as many guys to beat. There’s not a great chance that a guy in the bottom half of the field after 36 holes will end up winning, but anything is possible.
No-cut events IMO are significant only if you’re talking about a cut streak, and in Tiger’s case, he would still have the record for consecutive cuts even if you disallowed any no-cut event he didn’t win.
However, it’s true that some of the no-cut events have very small fields, and that definitely makes it easier to win. The two events you mention only have about 30 players in the field, but Tiger hasn’t played the Hyundai in several years, and only has a total of four wins like that. I haven’t looked it up, but I’d bet money that Sam and Jack have at least that many official wins with at least that small a field.
The WGCs* and the BMW have 70 or more world class players, so that’s about as many players with a real chance to win as most Masters fields. Good enough for me.
*(The WGC Matchplay has the top 64 players in its field, but the unpredictability of match play makes it the hardest event to win of the year.)
As for Tiger’s advantages, IMO Jack had it a lot better. Yes, Tiger has no money worries, a private jet, and can tailor his schedule around the majors, but all the world class players can say the same thing, so he doesn’t really have an advantage. I guess he can buy more mansions than Ian Poulter, but I don’t see how that helps him on the golf course.
On the other hand, Jack had all those same advantages at a time when only he and Arnie and maybe a couple other guys had them, so it gave them a huge edge over the competition. Super-agent Mark McCormack guaranteed Jack $100K in endorsements his first year as a pro, even if he didn’t earn a nickel in official winnings, at a time when the median family income was $6K a year, so he had no money worries. Jack bought his own plane in 1964, and flew first class before that. And Jack was building his schedule around the majors, and getting extra practice in at the sites, when nobody else even played all four each year.
As for technology, that favored Jack, too. Modern balls and clubs tend to level the playing field, and make it harder for the best players to separate themselves from the pack. For example, for Jack’s entire career, and Tiger’s first couple of years on tour, they had a big advantage over the other players because they could hit high, soft 2-irons that held the green. Now that advantage is gone, because the rest of the players just hit a hybrid.
Has any reporter ever pressed Woods on his need to portray himself as always having a chance to win, even when it’s obvious he’s out of it?
It looks like he’ll be at least a dozen strokes off the lead in the PGA after today, with a horde of competitors in front of him, and he’s playing mediocre golf at best. Still, in the press conference after today’s round, he comes out with this typical gem:
“As far as overall game plan and the way I’m playing, I’ve been there in enough of these things where I’ve been right there in the back nine on Sunday with a chance.”
Does even Tiger still buy this crap?
Considering that he never has once come from behind in a major after 54 holes, my guess is that he is trying to convince himself rather than convince the public.
He will be finished with his round about 30 minutes before the leaders start. My guess, that Lindsey will have the private jet gassed & packed and he will be airborne about the time the leaders walk off the first green.
Does Tiger buy it? Almost certainly not, but what do you EXPECT any athlete to say when he (or his team) is getting skunked- “It’s hopeless, there’s no chance of a comeback, so I plan to just phone it in the rest of the way and go home?”
That might be a realistic answer in many cases, but fans would lose respect for anyone who said that on camera. It’s better and safer to speak in optimistic cliches, to say “It’s not over yet, and I’m going to keep playing my best to the very end,” whether that’s true or not.
It has nothing to do with trying to do your best. I’ve never seen any other athlete build up a facade of invincibility to such a ludicrous extreme.
One wonders when a reporter will finally call him on it.
Right. Just once, I’d like to hear him say something like, “I didn’t play very well today. I didn’t hit it very good, didn’t make anything, kept blocking every putt.”
Oh wait, that’s exactly what he said about Saturday’s round. And it’s typical of what he says when he doesn’t play well. There really is a difference between hitting bad shots, and hitting good shots but being fooled by the wind, or how hard or soft the greens are, or just plain bad bounces.
Some guys, including some reporters who resent the fact that he won’t give them an exclusive interview, look for any excuse to bash him. He can say he pulled or blocked putts 99 times, and they ignore it. If he says the greens are bumpy the hundredth time, they are all over it — oh look, Tiger’s whining about the greens, he always blames somebody else.
I’ve never liked Tiger, but it’s not hard to understand why he tends to speak in cliches. His first big interview as a pro golfer was the famous GQ interview in which he told some dirty jokes and took a lot of flak for it.
After that, he learned never to let his guard down when doing interviews- and who can blame him?
Not only that, but most of the questions he gets are the same ones he gets every week. And he often has to give interviews to the greenside reporter, the Golf Channel reporter, the Sky Sports reporter, an Asian pool reporter, and the regular US press pool, one after the other, and getting the same stupid questions in each one. It’s a wonder he can keep his eyes open.
Yeah, and all that for barely over minimum wage! I bet he wishes he was pouring tar in the summer instead! 
There was a time - quite a lengthy time - that Tiger did NOT give endless interviews the same as mere mortals…
Absolutely, Tiger is making millions and millions of dollars per year, in part because his face is in front of microphone after every round.
And if you don’t think it is true, why did he go through that fake dog and pony show 3.5 yrs ago after the scandal. The main reason for the show was to curry favor to placate sponsors who were abandoning like rats off a sinking ship.
I doubt it. IMO the best thing for the sponsors would have been to just let things die down until he started winning again. I don’t see how humiliating himself like that would make anyone want to buy his line of clothing or whatever.
I speculate that the public mea culpa was a condition that Elin imposed to save his marriage. Reporters focused on what he said about himself, but a very prominent and emphatic part of that speech was an exoneration of Elin – how she absolutely didn’t hit him with a golf club or anything else, which is almost certainly false.
I think she wanted a divorce, so he promised he would do anything if she changed her mind, so she made him jump through a bunch of hoops like giving that speech, and going through addiction therapy, and not playing golf for several months. I have no idea how much all of that convinced her that he was going to change.
And then the news came out that he had also boinked the young (but not underage) neighbor girl, and that was it.