Ageed
Do not agree, see above post. Did you not even read my hypothetical example? Randomness creates unpredictability.
I wouldn’t extrapolate to that assumptions. My hypothesis is that Nicklaus would be even more dominate in this generation with the technology
I’d add that IMO another huge factor you left out is the modern training and coaching techniques.
Ben Hogan famously had to “dig his swing out of the dirt” with endless hours of practice. The golf swing was mostly a matter of trial and error, and not many players worked hard enough to perfect it. Today, kids get excellent coaching all through high school and college, with video tape, swing speed, ball speed, launch angle, spin rate, E=mc^2, etc., that would give a rocket scientist a headache.
So instead of fields with only a couple dozen guys who were either lucky enough to be born with a natural swing, or worked as hard as Hogan did to get a good swing, you have a hundred guys with swings that are optimal for them.
Combine that with the much larger talent pools (the PGA actually had a Caucasians-only clause from 1934 to 1961, and not many golfers from Asia or Europe played PGA events until well into the 1980’s), and the much larger purses which make more athletes pick golf as their preferred sport, and it all makes it much harder to win, let alone dominate, in the modern game.
Yes, I read your post. IMO you are simply wrong. IMO you guys make way too much of the course conditions of previous generations. The cream rises to the top, even in pinball arcades (and that’s not a metaphor; I mean that in contests where guys are playing pinball, the best players win.)
I grew up in a very small town in the desert, and played golf almost every day on a struggling muni course. It had one greenskeeper with a couple of minimum wage assistants. This was in the 1960’s.
And the fairways were fine, and the greens were fine. They were certainly much slower than Augusta, but you guys try to make it sound like it was all ruts and rocks, and it wasn’t. It was lush fairways, and smooth greens, even on my crappy Podunk muni course. I can only imagine what a PGA course was like back then; I never got within 100 miles of one.
You should read Jack’s autobiography, “My Story,” published in 1996. He gives a very long and IMO well-reasoned list of factors why the fields are so much stronger, and why it’s so much harder to dominate today (1996) than in his era, and concludes by saying the golfers in the middle of the pack in 1996 would compare favorably with the top golfers of his generation.
So Natural extrapolation from this hypothesis would be that now that there are 2 billion people from China that are just now exposed to the game, that a player who might win 10 majors in 20 years is going to be better than Tiger Woods.
[/sigh]
Jack was better because he was better between the ears. Same as Tiger. One difference Jack never let any outside influences affect his game for a long period. Tiger? hmmmm.
my hypothetical example was extreme example to illustrate my point. And the course conditions are only part of the formula. The Balls, club shafts, and heads are part of the formula too.
Do you remember playing the balata ball? That ball would be out of round after one hit back in the 60s. Ever try to putt a ball that was out of round? Jackie Burke told his Ryder Cup team to make sure that they hit a new ball on every par 3. The theory? a new ball would be less out of round after one iron shot, versus a ball that has been hit off the tee and an iron shot.
IMO, technology (and the immense money) has made it easier for a player to rise to the top. the journeyman player are often complacent with making a check.
I don’t know what you’re sighing about, because what you said is absolutely right. If, 25 years from now, someone wins 10 majors when there are another billion golfers in the talent pool, then yes, I’d guess he would be better than Tiger.
It’s the same in every sport. Athletes just keep getting better. The 1972 Miami Dolphins are the only undefeated team in modern NFL history. The 2008 Detroit Lions are the only 0-16 team in NFL history.
I’d gladly bet you 1000 bucks and take Detroit in a game between the two. Their OL averaged 50 pounds more than Miami’s, and they were undersized compared to other teams.
And IMO (and Jack’s, in the book cited above), you have it exactly backwards.
Suppose you’re currently in second place in an ordinary PGA event, one shot out of the lead, and one shot ahead of a three-way tie for third. You’re on the par-5 18th hole, you have 250 over water to the green for your second shot, and you’re not confident you can do that. Do you lay up, or not? An eagle will win, a birdie will get you into a playoff, a double bogey will get you into a tie for sixth, and a routine par will clinch solo second.
In 1965, second gets you about $10K. Winning gets you about $18K, and a T6 gets gets you about $4K or less. That $10K can just about pay your expenses for the year. You are as likely to lose $6K as you are to win another $8K by going for the win, and if you do lose the $6K, you may have to struggle for money the rest of the year. If you get the extra $8K, you’re sitting pretty for next year, but it’s certainly not life changing.
In 2010, second gets you about $600K, T6 gets you about $200K, and winning gets you a million bucks, plus an automatic invitation to the Masters (which wasn’t the policy until 1972). Winning is life changing. And there is really no down side, because even if you blow the shot, you’ll still make $200K for the week.
YMMV, but to me, it looks like going for the win is a lot easier in 2010 than in 1965.
The difference is even more dramatic in majors. In 1965, Jack was just about the only American who played four majors a year. Even Arnie, who rescued the British Open from obscurity, skipped it about half the time. And Jack not only played all the majors, he built his schedule around them. He could afford to take time off from the regular tour and scout the major venues weeks in advance, playing practice rounds, making notes on yardages. Nobody else did that, and all credit to him for being successful in his lobbying efforts to make “most majors” the gold standard in golf (before Jack broke his record, hardly anybody thought Walter Hagen was the best or even second best player of all time, even though he had the most pro majors).
Today, all the top players do what Jack did. They build their schedule around the majors, they scout the venues, they all have yardage books. In the 1960’s, nobody (except maybe Jack) knew that majors would be the only record that mattered. They were after money titles, Vardon Trophies, POYs. Today, everybody thinks that majors are all that matters.
Jack had a tremendous advantage when he was the only one who approached majors like that.
Graphite and composite drivers have added distance to drives. It has also added more missed fairways. Tiger kept the metal driver as long as he could. He was long enough to compete with a steel shaft for his first few years, but eventually had to give it up.
Courses have been lengthened in response and fairways narrowed. So while different today, the conditions are still relative.
And I will take Secretariat in the Kentucky Derby in 1973 (1:59:40) vs Animal Kingdom in 2011 (2:04:45) .
Yep, I can cherry pick my bets too.
http://org.elon.edu/ipe/f2%20andrew%20peters%20final.pdf
Here is a statistical analysis of PGA golf. Since 2002 ave. drives have increased 10 yards. Longer courses and narrower fairways have negated the difference.
His conclusion is that improving your putting 1stroke per round would net you 3/4 million bucks a year. Increasing your GIR one percent would net you 160,000 a year. Driving distance, sand saves, had a negligible difference.
Tiger was dominating, no argument… he couldn’t be touched in some majors, e.g. the 2000 U.S. Open which he won by 15 strokes.
But… I would argue that, to a large extent, his competitors showed an amazing lack of toughness and let Tiger win without a fight. In the Tiger Era how many times did Phil, Vijay, Ernie, etc rise to the occasion and shoot a great final round to beat Tiger? Zero. Whereas, Jack came in second 22 times in Majors, and there were multiple examples of great players playing great rounds to beat him.
The exceptions that prove the Tiger rule:
1998 British Open - Mark O’Meara shoots 68 in the final round to Tiger’s 66 to win by one.
2000 PGA - Bob May shoots 66-66 on the weekend to Tiger’s 70-67 to tie. Tiger wins the 3 hole playoff by one stroke.
2002 PGA - Rich Beem holds off Tiger to win by one stoke, shooting 68 to Tiger’s 67 in the final round.
2005 Masters - Chris DiMarco shoots 68 to Tiger’s 71 in the final round to tie. Tiger wins in the playoff.
2005 U.S. Open - Michael Campbell shoots 71-69 on the weekend to Tiger’s 72-69 to win by 3 shots.
2007 Masters - Zach Johnson shoots 69 to Tiger’s 72 in the final round to win by 2.
2007 U.S. Open - Angel Cabrera shoots 69 in the final round to Tiger’s 72 to win by one.
2008 U.S. Open - Rocco Mediate shoots 71 in the final round to Tiger’s 73 to tie. The Monday playoff is also tied, and Tiger finally wins on the first hole of sudden death.
2009 PGA - Y.E. Yang shoot 70 to Tiger’s 75 in the final round. It is Tiger’s first Major loss when leading after 54 holes.
So, the list above is Rich, Rocco, Michael, etc. and not Phil, Vijay, Davis, Ernie.
I suspect that K364 is correct; I get a sense that the group of players right below Tiger’s level (those who were capable of winning several non-major tournaments as well as a major here and there) was bigger than in Jack’s day, and the group below that (career journeymen who might, once in a lifetime, go out and have the major tournament of their life) was even bigger.
But that group of players who could stay with Tiger, rise to the occasion, and often beat him over a series of several majors, guys like Lee Trevino, Tom Watson, or Gary Player, were simply not there for the most part. Instead you had people like Padraig Harrington or Vijay Singh, who yes won majors, but…well…I just checked and these guys usually won, not when Tiger was on top of his game and they were matching him shot for shot, but when Tiger was in the top 10 but several strokes out, often out of the top 10 completely or not even in the tournament at all (Harrington won two of his majors when Tiger was out with his knee injury). I only counted a meager handful of majors where Tiger was still in it for the last hole or three (Angel Cabrera at the US Open in 2007 being the best example), but there’s nothing like Trevino vs. Jack at the 1971 US Open or '72 British, or Watson vs. Jack at the 1977 Masters and British Open or 1982 US Open, where they were both in it until the very bitter end and clear of the rest of field.
He can only play ( and beat) what is put in front of him. I think he’s the greatest ever but then I never did see Jack play.
Let’s see:
[ol]
[li]He is young[/li][li]He’s single[/li][li]He’s got almost $1 billion[/li][li]And he still one of the top pro golfers in the world[/li][/ol]
if he is “finished,” as you say, then he’s finished in a damn good position.I wish I was finished like that.
I was doing the opposite of cherry picking. I took the best of 40 years ago against the worst of today. If you want to pick two different teams from those respective eras, be my guest — the outcome will be even more in favor of today’s teams.
Still, you have a point about individuals. There is no way to know whether Jack was better than Tiger, or for that matter, than Jones, or Vardon. But it is possible to say, with a high degree of confidence, that the fields Jack competed against were better than those Jones and Vardon faced, and worse than those Tiger faced.
Then perhaps you can explain why Tiger has never won a major when he wasn’t leading after 54 holes. By your theory, everyone ahead of him should have given up, or choked away their lead, when they saw him within five shots of them.
It’s a fact that there are more one-time major winners, and fewer multiple major winners, in the Tiger era. IMO, the obvious conclusion is that there are more players capable of winning majors today. How you guys twist that into saying the competition is worse just baffles me.
Somehow “Jack lost more close ones” doesn’t strike me as strong evidence that he’s the best of all time.
Tiger winning by 8 or 12 or 15 seems like a better case to me.
I would have to go through the list of majors again, but my memory says that Tiger trounced the field 4-5 times. The rest of his wins the field was in striking distance but nobody produced two great rounds on the weekend. And my main point was that the few challenges he had were from “nobodies”… the other great players of his era never challenged him when they had a chance.
I did. I grew up idolizing Jack. I thought his nine-shot win at the 1965 Masters was the greatest tournament I had ever seen. Until Tiger came along.
Tiger is by far the most dominant player in history, and IMO dominance is a better standard than any one number, but it takes a little work to figure out who was more dominant. Just counting majors is easier; no thinking required.
But IMO it’s a lousy standard. Sure, majors should be a factor, but not the only factor. It’s just plain unfair to everyone who played before the 1980’s, because that’s about the first time all the top players played all the majors every year. Guys like Hogan and Nelson and Snead almost never played the Open, and had ALL the majors cancelled for three years or so during WWII. And Hagen not only had the same deal with WWI, but played his best golf before the Masters was even founded. In spite of that, he was still the record holder for most majors before Jack, but hardly anyone considered him the best of all time.
And as I said in an earlier post, if Tiger struggles for the next ten years, misses a lot of cuts, plays only infrequently, but somehow manages to win a major every two years, then he’ll have the majors record. But would that ten years of mostly mediocre golf really add anything to his previous record of excellence?
I say no, it wouldn’t. From now on, it’s just about longevity and durability.
A lot of people who think they remember the Jack era are really kidding themselves. Their memories are hazy, and they telescope 25 years of wins into one season. They act like he played well every week, dominated every year, and battled Arnie and Trevino and Watson for every victory.
The truth is that although Jack was one of the best players in the world for most of his 25-year winning span, he was hands-down THE best in the world only five of those years. And when you are talking about total dominance — most wins, most majors, Player of the Year, and Vardon Trophy — Jack only had one year like that, namely 1965. And even that is because I have awarded him a virtual Vardon and a virtual POTY, in recognition of the different standards back then. He actually didn’t win either that year.
Meanwhile, Tiger has had seven years like that, without the need of virtual awards. And Tiger was the indisputable best in two other years, giving him a total of nine years as THE best golfer in the world, to Jack’s five.
Jack did not battle Palmer and Watson for 25 years. Arnie was through winning majors very early in Jack’s career, while Watson became a star fairly late in Jack’s career.
To be exact, Arnie won his last major early in Jack’s third year on tour, so Arnie was not the analog of Phil Mickelson to Tiger; he was more like Olazabal (who won the 1999 Masters).
And Tom Watson won his first Player of the Year award late in Jack’s 16th year on tour. So if we synchronize Jack’s career with Tiger’s, i.e. Jack’s first full year on tour was 1997, then as of the beginning of 2011, Tom Watson would have less impressive numbers than Stewart Cink.
I like Jack; I think he’s the second greatest of all time. But Tiger was better.
FTR, due to archaic rules, Nicklaus was ineligible to win many awards when he was a young pro. The PGA had rules that players who were not full fledged Class A PGA Professionals could not win Vardon Trophy and Player of the Year. (It is often quipped that he had not learned out to sell sweaters out of pro shops)
Nicklaus did not play a Ryder Cup Competition until 1969 because of the rules.
Speaking of Ryder Cup, since TW became a pro, the US side has won only one Ryder Cup when Tiger is on the team. And 1-0 when Tiger was not on the team. And the one win with Tiger was a miraculous comeback in Boston when the Euro Team fell apart in the Singles competition. Jack’s Ryder Cup teams never lost a Ryder Cup. (was tied once and he did Captain a losing team)
What in the heck are you talking about? Less Impressive Numbers? Watson won 36 times and 8 majors in his first 14 yrs. Stewart Cink, 6 times/ 1 major. And Watson might have defeated Cink in his major win (at age 59) if Cink hadn’t slow-played Watson when getting to the first playoff hole.