Well there was Player, Casper, Lima. and a few others who burst on the scene and then left. But he did not face players from across the globe like Tiger did.
That is a common misconception. Jack couldn’t win the Vardon or be on the Ryder Cup team his first five years as a pro, but he was eligible for Player of the Year, and in fact finished second to Boros in the voting in 1963. At that time, it was awarded by a vote of both players and sportswriters. IMO, Palmer had a better year than either Jack or Boros.
Starting in 1967, Jack was eligible for the Vardon, but he chose not to play the required number of rounds, so he never won it. Not once. But that hasn’t stopped him from awarding himself eight scoring titles on his own web site.
The thing is, taking time off from the tour gave him an advantage in preparing for the majors that Vardon winners like Casper and Trevino didn’t have, so he can’t have it both ways.
Perhaps you are unaware that six of the top ten players in the world today are from Europe, while there were no European players in the world top ten (there was no official WGR, but there was a consensus) from the time Jack turned pro in 1962, until Seve came along in 1979 or so.
Perhaps you are also unaware that in Jack’s era, the US played against only golfers from the UK and Ireland in the Ryder Cup, while since 1979 they play against all of Europe. Stars like Kaymer, Sergio, Jiminez, Stenson, Bjorn, Hansen, and the Molinari brothers would not have been eligible in Jack’s day.
Sorry, I guess I wasn’t clear. Tiger’s first full year on tour was 1997 (he turned pro in September 1996, after all the majors were over), so 2011 is his 15th year on tour.
Jack’s first full year on tour was 1962 (he turned pro in December of 1961), so his 15th year was 1976.
And in 1976, Tom Watson’s career stats were one major and two other PGA wins.
So when comparing Jack’s competition to Tiger’s, everybody talks about his classic battles with Tom Watson. But if Jack had started playing in 1997, then by this point in his career, Tom Watson would not be Tom Watson; he wouldn’t even be Stewart Cink or Zack Johnson. He’d be Ben Curtis.
Tiger may have a Tom Watson type player in his future. Maybe it’s Dustin Johnson, or Ricky Fowler, or Rory McIlroy. Maybe it’s even Ben Curtis. The point is, his superstar status is still in the future, just like Tom Watson wasn’t a superstar yet in 1976, when Jack had played as long as Tiger has. But you guys like to think that Jack was battling Watson for majors his whole career, and he wasn’t.
Just for amusement I have categorized the 240 majors winners since 1951 by decade 1951-60, 61-70 etc.
Here is how they pan out.
1950s 25 Individual Winners; 21 first time winners who ended up as 7 multiple winners (won another major) and 14 one major only guys.
1960s 24 IW; 19 FT; 4 Multis ; 14 solos
1970s 20 IW; 14 FT; 7 Multis; 7 solos
1980s 27 IW; 17 FT; 8 Multis; 9 solos
1990s 26 IW; 21 FT; 8 Multis; 13 solos
2000s 25 IW; 22 FT; 4 Multis so far ( Phil Mickelson, Pádraig Harrington, Retief Goosen and Ángel Cabrera) .
Ernie Els, Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh (12%) are the only major winners since 2000 who had won in the prior decade.
In comparison of the 27 winners in the 1980s 10 (37%) had already won a major in the previous decade.
For the 50s the figure was 16%, the 60s 21%, the 70s 30% and the 90s 19%.
Is your math right for the 2000’s? We’re into the second decade.
Didn’t know whether to start a new thread on US Open Golf, but I didn’t think a US Open thread would have much traction with it being more than a week away.
Tiger just tweeted that he is not going to play the US Open:
I guess there is probably a longer statement on his website.
When TW announced that he had (re)injured his knee and achilles, it was noted as “minor”.
Apparently, it is much more than minor, after all he won the US Open with a stress factor in his leg.
The new swing from Sean Foley was supposed to take stress off the knee. I never thought to much of the Stack n Tilt swing, and in a nutshell, that is what the Foley swing is.
I am seriously beginning to wonder if he will return to Major championship form. He now down to #15 in the rankiings, and will probably be in 20’s if he returns for the ATT National in a month (used to be his tournament, and its charity is TW’s foundation).
I don’t like Tiger, I have always found him to be petulant and arrogant. But it would be a shame if injuries does cut his career short.
“I am extremely disappointed that I won’t be playing in the U.S. Open, but it’s time for me to listen to my doctors and focus on the future,” Woods said. “I was hopeful that I could play, but if I did, I risk further damage to my left leg. My knee and Achilles tendon are not fully healed. I hope to be ready for AT&T National, the next two majors and the rest of the year.”
I think that is the entire statement.
Actually, I think this is a good thing, in that he seems to finally be thinking more than a week ahead. If it takes him the next two years to fully recover from his injuries, he’ll still be younger than Hogan was when he resumed play after the horrific accident that left his legs shattered — and went on to win six more majors, even though he played only two a year most years.
Great line by Jason Sobel in his article on the golfchannel website:
I think it’s a stupid line.
Sobel says Tiger is chasing Jack’s many records, but only one matters. That shows he’s not only dumb, but ignorant. “Most majors” is the ONLY important record Jack holds. The only other records he holds by himself are those that smack of desperation by Jack fans, like “most second place finishes” or the like.
Sam Snead has the most PGA wins. Jack has the most majors. Tiger has the most money titles, Player of the Year Awards, Vardon Trophies, and most years where he won more events than anyone else. He also holds the record for most under par in all four majors. And he did all that in 13 years. Jack had 25 good years, and isn’t even in second place in half of those categories. He’s tied for last in Vardons, with zero.
IMO, if Tiger never wins another event, he won’t be the first loser, he’ll be the greatest golfer the world has ever seen.
There is only record that Tiger cares about. and it ain’t PoY, Money titles, Vardon trophies. Heard it all before. the only thing that TW cares about is the number 19. and if he doesn’t get it, he fails.
Jack never cared about winning the most title, winning the money list, winning the Vardon trophy. He set up his career to win majors. Jack was disqualified from winning the Vardon many years because he didn’t have enough rounds. he was playing 16-20 events while Money leaders was playing 30.
And Yes, TW won money titles while also being a part time player. But Jack didn;t have the benefit of playing tournaments with 20-25% additional prize money compare with the rank/file tournaments.
today’s Majors have a bigger purse structure as percentage as compared to regular tournaments than they did in the 60’s and 70’s. It was not as easy to win money titles by cherry picking events in the mid 70’s as it now.
Example:
Jack won 40 grand for winning Heritage and 40 grand for winning the Masters in 1975. Watson won 16,000 for winning the 1975 British Open
This year, Schwartzel won 1.44 Million for winning the Masters, and Snedeker won 1.044 Million for winning. Last year Oosthuizen won 1 Million Euro (~$1.4 Million)
And the WGCs? didn’t exist in mid 70’s and Watney won 1.4 Million for the Doral event.
Money titles is an apple and oranges.
I wonder how many Vardons Nicklaus would have won if the same set of rules were in effect as they are today. Less rounds are required these days and the now the Vardon is an adjusted stroke average.
Snead’s record? would Nicklaus have been a part-time player if he really wanted Sneads record? Or even Tiger? Nicklaus got to 73 wins while never playing more than 20 events in the 70’s and 80’s. Most of the time it was around 15 events. And all this while building a course design business.
There was only one thing on TW’s bedroom wall when he was growing up. It was 6 Masters, 5 PGA’s, 4 US Opens, and 3 British Opens.
You’re simply wrong about Jack never caring about Snead’s career victories record. In an interview after his first Masters win (1963), Jack said, “My aim is to win more golf tournaments than anybody who ever lived. I want to be the greatest.”
http://tinyurl.com/jackquote
(enter 12 in the page number box, then look in the middle of the page for the article about Jack)
Majors were always important to Jack, but it wasn’t until he had the majors record, and was still far short of Snead’s mark, that he (with the able assistance of Dan Jenkins, then a very influential golf writer) lobbied successfully to get “most majors” as the standard of excellence in golf.
Before Jack came along, Walter Hagen had the most pro major wins. Nobody thought he was the greatest of all time before Jack broke his record, and nobody thought he was second greatest afterward. Even today, the same people who say Tiger has to break Jack’s major record to be considered a better player, almost all rank Ben Hogan, with nine majors, ahead of Hagen, with 11.
What Jack did by switching goals — after he had already accomplished the new goal — would be exactly like Tiger declaring that his new goal is to win more WGC’s than anybody else. I still can’t believe Jack got away with it, especially when it was so obviously unfair to the greats who had preceded him.
It’s certainly fair to compare Jack’s major wins to Tiger’s, although Tiger has 11 more years before a winner can be declared. But it is patently unfair to compare Jack’s major wins to anyone who came before him, because he was the very first player to play four majors every year he was a pro. Guys like Vardon and Hagen hit their primes before the PGA and Masters were even founded, and guys like Nelson, Hogan, and Snead had a bunch of majors canceled for WW II, and even if they hadn’t, the Open Championship paid so little and required so much travel time that they only played it once each in their primes, and even if all THAT hadn’t been true, they even had years (notably 1953) when two majors were played concurrently.
So for Jack to break Hagen’s record, when Hagen only played about half as many majors as Jack during their respective primes, was not that amazing. What amazes me is that the public and press went along with him.
And because they went along with him, it suddenly became a lot harder to win majors. One reason Jack never won a Vardon was because he took time off from the tour to scout the major venues weeks in advance. That gave him a huge advantage over his competitors, because he was the only one who did it. The other golfers treated the majors (except the Open) as big events, but they didn’t build their schedules around them like Jack did.
After Jack made majors the standard, and the press started hyping them, all the top players built their schedules around them. Guys like Phil Mickelson openly admit that they are practicing for the majors while playing regular events. It makes it a lot harder to win one.
And Jack had the Open almost all to himself for half of his career. Even Arnie, who rescued the Open from near oblivion by being the first American star since Hagen to play it more than once or twice, only played it about half the time. Most of the other top Americans of the 60’s, like Billy Casper, Gene Littler, and Julius Boros, hardly ever played it. Gary Player did, but he skipped a lot of PGA’s. Jack was the only big star who played four majors a year, every year.
So when you say poor Jack didn’t win as many money titles or Vardons because he didn’t play often enough, save some pity for the guys who DID support the tour by playing regular events while Jack was off scouting the major venues, giving himself a big advantage, when the other players didn’t even realize that majors would ever be the standard.
Do you want to hold Jack accountable for what they say when he was age 23? Yet you don’t want to hold Tiger accountable for what he has said for years and years. C’mon OK maybe I was slightly in error when I said “never” but it was more hyperbole than anything else.
I know what Jack said when he was a young pro. I also know things change. Barbara starting dropping kids like crazy in the 1960’s and he vowed that he would never be away from home for more than 2 straight weeks. And for the most part he did that. Rarely playing more than two tournaments in a row, and when he did, he probably had Barbara with him, or he was able to get home between the tournaments.
Tiger has stated the standard is 18 pro majors. If he thinks it is the standard, why don’t you, and his many other supporters?
Jack played 16-17 tournaments per year in the late 1960’s and 1970’s, and he still accumulated 73 tour wins. The typical tour pros like Trevino were playing 30+ events per year.
Its obvious to anyone that can draw conclusions that Jack changed his mind about the total wins being the standard long before he got his 14th major.
If you want to hold golfers accountable to what they say, I got a laundry list of things Tiger has said and later contradicted. Tiger said in his 2010 Masters Press Conference that he only wanted to be on the Ryder Cup team “if he qualified”. He didn’t qualify, and yet he was on the team. (and did not change his schedule to give himself a better chance of qualifying)
Geez, Nicklaus was 23 yrs old when he made that statement, and you hold him accountable for his statement.
And I will never put any stock in the PoY and Vardon Trophies. Orville Moody won a PoY and he won one tournament is his life. ONE Tournament! The Vardon Trophy calculation was even more suspect. Calvin Peete was in contention for the Vardon Trophy and he kept WDing (mid round) from tournaments when he having a bad round. It was not an adjusted average back then and a player could load up on tournaments with easy courses.
yes, Many of the best American pros didn’t go play the British Open in the 60’s. But it is not like Nicklaus inflated his major total in the British Open. He only won it three times, compared to 6,5,4 for the other three majors.
Tiger has won more a crapload of WGC events. How many players are in those events? Certainly not a full field of ~144 players with a cut. No more than 80 players and as little as 64. And a couple of Tour Championships with only 30 players.
the only things that count is wins. and right now Jack has 18 major and 73 wins. Both more than Tiger.
I think Tiger is the greatest golfer in history, but he’s obviously not the smartest. I feel nothing but sadness for anyone whose idea of comparative analysis of golfing careers is to count to 18.
All you’re doing is cherry-picking the stats you want to compare them to so as to support your predetermined conclusion that Tiger is better-earlier you dissed the mere idea that Jack had all those 2nd place finishes, but that’s actually a point in his favor more than anything else, as it shows how often he gave himself a chance to win (corrolary: he had top tens in 36 out of 40 majors in the 70’s, which is amazing when you think about it).
Again I’ll posit my hypothesis that the numbers of elite players that Jack had to beat was greater than during Tiger’s peak, even if Tiger had to deal with deeper fields overall. If a Trevino, Watson, or Player has a 10-15% chance of winning (Jack’s was about 23.5% during his 1962-80 peak, Tiger 25% for 1997-2010-but of course that doesn’t include his late 30’s decline phase yet), that is equal to 10-15 journeymen at 1% each, which more than helps to balance the deeper fields with more players having at least a long shot (1% or 99-1, which is usually how far the sporting books go before they put up the “field” odds). Essentially Jack was more consistent, Tiger more hot and cold.
Well wins are lot more concrete than a subjective PotY (Orville Moody w/ 1 career win) and a fuzzy Vardon (Formulas have been modified and tweaked). Calvin Peete used to WD in midround to give himself a better opportunity of winning the Vardon.
Money Titles :dubious:
Ask yourself these questions:
a. Who won the most times in 1986?
b. Who won the most money in 1986?
c. Who won the Vardon Trophy in 1986?
d. Won was the PoY in 1986?
e. Who won the Masters in 1986?
Answers:
a. Bob Tway
b. Greg Norman
c. Scott Hoch
d. Bob Tway (he won the PGA as well as three other tournaments)
e. Jack Nicklaus (the gimme)
There was only 4 tournaments that people remembered in 1986. and those four tournaments were noteworthy because Greg Norman was the 3rd round leader in all of them, and won none of them.
Maybe you can tell who won the Memphis Tournament that year? I picked Memphis because it is this weeks tournament.
Mike Hulbert, do not know if he was putting one handed at the time.
Using today’s PGA of America PoY calculation, Nicklaus would have won PoY in:
1963: Nicklaus 4 wins including Two Majors: (Boros won with 3 wins including US Open)
1964: Nicklaus #1 Scoring Avg, #1 Money List, 5 wins (Venturi won with one win, the USOpen)
1965: Nicklaus #1 Scoring Avg, #1 Money List, 1 major, 5 wins total. (Marr won with one win, PGA)
1966: Two Majors
1980: Two Majors
If the PoY had an apples and apples comparison, Nicklaus would have won 5 more PGA of America PoY titles.
If a player wins two majors, that almost clinches the PoY for a player since the rules were changed in the 1980’s.
He led the tour in scoring avg 8 times, and probably would have won 8 Vardon trophies if the todays rules were in play during Nicklaus’ prime.
Nicklaus appeared to be indifferent about the Vardon Trophy because he simply didn’t play enough tournaments to qualify for the award.
Nicklaus was before most of the world had great golf programs. Tiger plays against a larger and far deeper international field. Tigers record for making the cut is amazing. He played well week after week., year after year . There are talented Asian , European and Aussie players on the tour nowadays. The teachers are much better all around the world. We have a Jr. pro tour with the best qualifying for the PGA. Tiger has it much tougher than Jack did.
Yes, Tiger makes a lot of cuts. And he holds the record for most consecutive cuts made at 142. But what is seldom mentioned (if at all) is all the no cut tournaments that were in that streak. WGC’s, Tour Championship. The cut streak should have two asterisks
#1. The sheer number of non-cut tournaments in the streak
#2. The fact that he essentially made the cut, at the Bay Hill tournament in 1999 on a loophole. He was not one of the top 70 players after 36 holes, but he was one of the top 70 professionals after 36 holes.
debatable. Tiger has:
Perfect golf courses every week.
No travel issues.
An entourage to take care of every need. (Players had to use local caddies for the majors during a lot of career)
technology to measure golf courses (Jack used to do most of his yardages)
One of Jack main rivals almost won the 2009 British Open. he was in a playoff, for goodness sake. At age 59 yrs and 10 months. If Jack’s rivals were so bad, how did one of his chief rivals do so well against Tiger’s competition 30 years later?
What makes Tiger the final word on this?
Obviously TW is not the final word on it. But it is the de facto standard. Most golf fans know how many pro majors Jack won. It is mentioned in nearly every press conference that Tiger has. Snead’s record is not.
The reason why I decided to post that quote from Sobel (and I am sure the reason why Sobel wrote it the first place) was Tiger once opined (paraphrasing from something he said early in his career) that “2nd Sucks, it just the first loser.” Karma.
As I’ve tried (but failed, I guess) to make clear twice now is that the size of the fields doesn’t matter all that much-it’s the chance that a given golfer will actually win that counts. Sure, fields are “deeper” now-but I’m not sure how much that affects the chance that fringe golfers will dash out of nowhere and contend, if not steal one here and there. What counts the most is the number of elite and near-elite players, whose chances of victory are much greater, and while that is very likely still a higher number now than 30-40 years ago, we’ve seen time and time again how often these “elite” players wilted (or were just MIA) when Tiger was on the board (someone even did a study on that and it showed how much worse they were in the final round when Tiger was in contention vs. when he wasn’t).
I have no idea why more people tended to stay with Jack when he was “on” (some of them undoubtedly choked too, like that guy in the 1970 British Open who flubbed a 4 foot putt for the win-Doug Sanders IIRC), but there have been innumerable tournaments when he was on, but someone else got hotter. For whatever reason when Tiger was on, most everyone else tended to be off.
Frankly this will never be settled until we get the two of them into the Matrix/Holodeck and let them play a couple of dozen matches at their peaks.