Tiger’s back! All hail Tiger!
McDowell is looking good today, too. This ain’t over.
Now it is and I, for one, am glad. I hope this is the beginning of another great run by Tiger, because when he was on there was nothing more exciting. I think he will win the Masters, he played well there even when he wasn’t playing well over all.
G-Mac was putting like shit on the back nine, though. Especially compared to how he was dropping putts like crazy on the front.
Still, waaaaaaaaay too early to sound the alarm about Tiger being back. It makes good copy, but golf is a lot more complicated than that.
I’m kind of new here, so somebody remind me: what do you call it when the poster’s name and the post’s content match up really well?
Actually, it’s quite simple. The lowest score wins. Tiger was five shots lower than anyone else. It was the largest margin of victory since last year’s US Open.
TonySinclair, we have a forum you can go to if you want to insult other posters. This forum isn’t it. Please don’t insult anyone else in any forum outside of the BBQ Pit.
Not a warning, just a note.
That is spin.
it was a nice win by Tiger. His first win against a decent full sized field in 30+ months. Other players have just as good as wins as him. It was a good field, It was NOT a great field. Lots and lots of players have Good wins and they are just another golfer.
Going into last week, there were only two of the top eleven in the World Rankings. They were #8 Justin Rose and #7 Webb Simpson.
#1 Luke Donald - Not in the field
#2 Rory McIlroy - Not in the field
#3 Lee Westwood - Not in the field
#4 Martin Kaymer - Not in the field
#5 Steve Stricker - Not in the field
#6 Charl Schwartzel - Not in the field
#9 Adam Scott - Not in the field
#10 Jason Day - Not in the field
#11 Dustin Johnson - Not in the field
The field had depth, not any real quality. A good win, not a great win. Head to Head, Tiger has not beaten Rory McIlroy in nearly year who I think is the best golfer on the planet.
Apparently some TW fans are coming out the woodwork. Tony Sinclair has not been a SDMB member very long but checking his posting history, he has not made one comment on Tiger until yesterday. And his first one, in the thread that he started yesterday, he used the inflammatory word I have seen in golf forums, “HATER”. Those kind of insults are the reason why I don’t post in the golf forums. One forum that I read lit up like a Macy’s Xmas tree last night with new posters.
It is literally impossible to be Tiger Woods critic without be labeled as a HATER or worse yet, a RACIST. It is tiring. There are golf fans who do not like Tiger Woods because he is arrogant, fake, a liar and a serial adulterer.
He has had a fantastic career, 2nd to none in the current generation, by far, and one of three best ever to play the game. That doesn’t mean people have to like him. 45 years ago, many golf fans didn’t like Nicklaus and they were not called haters. They just happened to like Palmer and Nicklaus was a threat to that.
I get that Nicklaus is one of the other two, but who’s the other one, IYO? Hogan? Jones? Hagen? I like Tiger winning; it’s good for the fiscal health of professional golf. Pity that another African-American hasn’t shown up to take the reins. Even if you think that this victory marks a resurgence of Tiger Woods in majors, surely he can’t do it for many more years? You can win over 40, as this chart shows, but it isn’t that likely.
Tiger is only 36. He has 16 shots at winning majors before he even turns 40, and he’s in better shape than every golfer on that list of winners after 40.
GrayGhost: I put Nicklaus #1, Tiger #2, and Hogan #3.
And I think your point about TW is spot on. Tiger has proven himself to be highly fragile and vulnerable to injury. Just two weeks ago, he was carted off the golf course. He claims to be healthy, but that knee was designed to support a 6’1" 140 frame.
Tiger has bulked up to an estimated 190-200 lbs and those knees are supporting an extra ~50 lbs on every step, every day, every swing. His early (Butch) swing has really compromised the left knee with the way he snapped it straight on every swing.
Wow. I am happy to comply with forum rules, but your definition of insults baffles me. If you take my post in the worst possible way, it translates to “That post falls short of genius.” I haven’t been here long, but I’ve seen several instances of some of your fellow mods explicitly call posts ignorant and uninformed — not as mods, just as debate participants.
And the other guy said I came out of the woodwork, which IMO is much more insulting than saying his post did not display genius, besides being a comment about me personally (my alleged resemblance to a roach, I guess), and not about my post. Is this forum like an RPG, where you build up immunity the longer you’ve been here?
Well, I’m glad you got all that off of your chest, but it has nothing to do with my post. I didn’t call anyone a hater; I said that not even a hater could find much wrong with the way Tiger played yesterday. And since it was the first post in a new thread, it’s obvious that I was not directing it at anyone in this forum.
It is so obvious that haters exist that I don’t care to debate it, but it is completely false that “it is literally impossible to be a Tiger Woods critic without being labeled as a HATER or a RACIST.” I would think that someone who compares Tiger fans to roaches “coming out of the woodwork” would not be complaining about a broad brush, especially one that does not exist.
As to your assertion that Tiger is “just another golfer,” and that it is spin that he won Bay Hill by the largest margin since last June, you have not made a case for either. His margin of victory is a simple fact, and Bay Hill is a full field official PGA event, which the people who claimed he would never win again made the standard — after they moved the goalposts from “anywhere” when he won the Chevron. I suppose that the goalposts have been moved again, to a major win, and that’s fine with me. I’m betting he wins at least two this year, barring another injury.
Your assertion that “Lots and lots of players have Good wins and they are just another golfer” is debatable, but I don’t want to debate it. I’ll just say that there is only one golfer who leads the PGA in total driving, ball striking, and all-around, and who is second to Rory in WGR points earned and scoring average. All that is just from this year, and takes no account of his incredible career.
Right now, Tiger is clearly the best American golfer. His official ranking is 0.12 behind Stricker, but that is based on the last two years. A shorter window, or even a divisor based on the actual number of events played, would put him fourth in the world, after Rory, Luke, and Lee. I will happily concede that he has yet to prove that he is better than the top Euros, but even if you don’t think he will do that in the next few months, as I do, it makes no sense to say he’s “just another golfer,” when he’s probably no worse than the third best in the world, and provably no worse than fourth.
Have to agree with you there.
Statistics.
Some facts
2011 Total Driving Leaders: John Merrick (lost his card), Jonathon Rollins,
2010 Total Driving Leaders: Charles Warren (lost his card) Graham DeLaet.
“Figures don’t lie but liars figure” TW is trending very well, but to say he is back to his pre November form is premature. He has won exactly one real tournament.
Last month, he got waxed mano-a-mano 64-75 by a Phil Mickelson when both were in contention to win. he was carted off the golf course with 6 holes to play two week ago. Coincidentally, he was 3 over at the time. In Abu Dhabi, he hit 2 fairways and 6 GIR in the final round. In the match play, he beat a deer in the headlight Gonzalo-Fernandez Castano and all he needed to do was be under par against Watney to win that match. couldn’t do it.
Bay Hill is a very familiar course with good vibes for him. Its a course he has won 7 times and there was very few highly ranked players.
Clearly the best American golfer IS debatable. Steve Stricker has three wins in the last year, Keegan Bradley has two wins including a major and has been in periphery of contention every week. And he is still getting his feet wet.
The “out of the woodwork” comment was not an analogy to cockroaches. I apoloogie if you interpreted it that way. It was just a reflection to your initial comment in the thread you started with the inflammatory word “HATERS” which I see all the time in golf forums when the TW fans cannot counter the critics arguments. they resort to name calling.
LOL, you meant it in a good way! With equal sincerity, I thank you for the “apology.”
Some additional facts:
2010 US Open winner - has not won since 2010
2010 British Open winner - has not won outside of South Africa since then
2011 Masters winner - has not won since then
2011 British Open winner - only finish better than 20th since then was DFL in a field of 12 at the Nedbank
It’s almost as if it’s really tough to stay on top for long, but that doesn’t mean your achievements are meaningless.
He was six under for the event, and had only six and a half holes left to play after a perfect drive on 12. He was probably headed for a middle of the pack finish, but if you are implying that he quit because he couldn’t win, then you are moving from the category of legitimate criticism into the fringe. He completed all four rounds of the no-cut Bridgestone when he was 10 back after the first round, and finished 30 back of the winner. He has withdrawn from an event four times in his 16 year pro career (not counting the 1998 ATT, when the last round was delayed by six months), and the last time people said he was faking an injury because he was having a bad day, at the 2011 Players, he had to sit out the next two majors.
As for the list of events you gave where he didn’t win this year, he has won as many times as anyone else on tour, and more than all but a few. He has earned more WGR points than Phil, after playing in fewer events, and forfeiting his free points at the WGC. And even dragging around his horrendous last two years, his WGR is nine higher than Phil’s.
Would you say Phil Mickelson, whom you just cited as an example of someone clearly superior to Tiger, is “just another golfer?”
Mickelson is 41 years and has debilitating psoriatic arthritis. He “says” the medication is managing. IMO, he has good days and bad days and Sunday at PB was a very good day. I know people with Psoriatic arthritis. they can barely walk and function. Enbrel helps them, but not a great deal. I fully expect Mickelson to call it quits shortly. I think he is done winning. So I think TW got schooled by a cripple 2 months ago.
FTR, we are not talking about GMAC, Darren Clarke, and you are trying to deflect attention to them. I pointed out the winners of the total driving category to point out how meaningless statistics are, especially total driving. The only thing that counts is wins and TW has exactly one in the last 30+ months, in a good, not great field, that contained none of the top 6 players at the time.
And he was 3 over par for the day, and headed south on the leaderboard.
and yes, Phil Mickelson is Just Another Golfer.
For the record, look at the date when I first said Tiger Woods was “Just Another Golfer”. And this is the post you originally quoted.
At least one win in all but three years since 1991; four majors and two WGCs, plus 23 other PGA wins, since 2004; and a first and second in consecutive weeks already this year. All I can say is you have some very high standards.
I don’t care when you first said it. The post I saw was from a couple of weeks ago, after Tiger had played well in Australia, won the Chevron, and contended in almost every event he played this year, including that brilliant 62 at the Honda. This is just my opinion, but I don’t see how anyone who understands golf could have said he was “just another golfer” after seeing him do that, even if he hadn’t won nearly a hundred events around the world. But seeing as how you put Phil in the same class, I’ll accept that you simply speak a different language than I do.
Chevron was 18 player exhibition not a real tournament.
Australia had about 18 noteworthy players and about 100 that had the equivalent ranking the NGA Hooter Tours. about 50 players had a ranking about the same as mine, as in NONE.
when I say “Just Another golfer” it is a reflection of their current game. What Mickelson did in 1993 is irrelevant as what Tiger did in 2000 is irrelevant.
the 62 was done when he was so far back that he had nothing to lose but to go for every pin. Players go low all the time on the PGAT. Brian Harmon (who?) shot 61 that week when the next lowest score that day was 64. Woods bettered Lee Westwood by just one one shot on that Sunday.
And Brian Harmon is just another golfer. PGAT shoot great rounds, that is what they do.
It is only noteworthy the the blind hog finds an acorn, it never noteworthy when the pig goes hungry.