He’s more dominant than Jack was. So yeah, it’s that new math. It’s also ebonics, if you’re counting.
Somebody’s got the talking points from three years ago and hasn’t been paying attention.
The same somebody who has explicitly and repeatedly stated that he doesn’t have the numbers for the past few years and would like to see them? That guy?
For his career, he has 232 starts, 218 cuts made, 63 firsts, 23 seconds, 17 thirds, 146 top tens, and 192 top twenty fives. In the top ten in 63% of the tournaments played. Can we lay the inconsistency idea to rest? Cite. Overall he has won PGA events 27% of the time, so I was wrong about the 30% figure, but it is still more than twice that of Nicklaus. I suspect the 30% figure factors in his worldwide schedule,where he has won 20 or so other titles. (That cite also gives his PGA stats for the past four years.)
Nicklaus had 594 starts, 506 cuts made, 73 wins, 58 seconds, 34 thirds, 286 top tens, and 389 top twenty-fives. Cite. They both came in second about 10% of the time. 48% of his starts were top tens, compared to 63% for Tiger. Further comparisons down the line are similar, or favor Tiger.
What do you suppose Nicklaus would say if asked who the greatest of all time was?
I think this emphasis on “top 3 in majors,” to the exclusion of everything else, is strange. It seems to me to be a made up criterion. Yes, Nicklaus had a lot of seconds and thirds. Good for him. The day that Tiger passes him in total majors all this will be moot. And that day is coming soon.
Silly argument really. If you are going to discount all other factors, like depth of the playing talent, then we should be comparing Woods with the greatest golfer of all time Bobby Jones. Although essentially just a weekend player who played golf for 3 months a year, when he retired at 28 his record was phenomenal. He won 65% of the majors he played from 1923 - 30. In the last 12 Opens he played he finished first or second in 11, winning 7. He only played 11 US Opens but is equal with Nicklaus on 4 wins and 4 seconds, 2 other top ten finishes and a worst result of eleventh.
While we’re at it, Woods is 15 for 26 with two seconds, two fourths and two fifths in the WGC, which typically includes the top 50 golfers in the world. Arguably the deepest field of any tournaments. He has 15 wins. The rest of the world has 11, with, IIRC, only one other golfer (Darren Clarke) having more than 1 win. Clarke has 2.
Wow that is stupidly dominant. What a great stat.
heh, that’s amazing.
I’m comparing top 3 in majors because of the reasons I already outlined – coming very close to winning is a positive, not a negative – and because Tiger himself says to only look at his performance in the majors.
But I thank you profusely for offering up the cold hard stats I so craved. Your argument is quite compelling, and I find a perverse satisfaction that Tiger is indeed a big top 3 player if only so people like Wee Bairn have to backpedal so furiously:
Really? Because Tiger finished 2nd more often than Jack did – 9.9% vs 9.8% – so I guess that’s a negative for Tiger, right?
I’d still like to see the numbers for just the majors, though. It is what Tiger has asked us to do, after all.
This confuses me. Aren’t the top 50 golfers in, say, the US Open, along with 100 others? I mean, what top 50 player skips a major? I’m honestly asking, since I always assumed the PGA was like the WTA, where all the best players show up for the majors. (Barring injury, of course. Plus the clay court thing, but you get the idea.)
Amend my statement to “deepest field of any tournaments excluding majors.” I would put the WGC fields on a par with majors.
You could also look at this in the context of top 3s. Over 60% of Tiger’s top 3s are wins, with 22% and 17% seconds and thirds. For Jack it is 44% / 35% / 21% based on the stats upthread. So in tournaments where they were in the thick of the race, Tiger closed the deal more often. The source of his slight lead (9.9 vs 9.8) in second places is the fact that he’s near the top in a larger percentage of events.
Having said that the stats for Jack may be a bit misleading as I assume they include all his more recent tournaments which would skew his stats down.
Great way to look at it.
I noticed the same thing about the skewing down, since after 25 years and (roughly) 450 tournaments Jack had basically done everything he was going to do. In the next (roughly) 150 tournaments he only had a handful of top 3 finishes with no wins.
Jack himself would agree with that statement. And before anybody cries “cite!”, I’ve been following Jack’s career for years, and I remember several statements he’s made along those lines.
The only inconsistency that Tiger has shown is a couple of major-less years when he was completely overhauling his swing, only to come roaring back the next year.
Funny how the overhauls, to the untrained eye, are virtually nil.
This argument occurred when Nicklaus was overtaking Hogan.Hogan fans said the equipment was better courses better etc. There are some geezers who will tell you now that Hogan was the best all time. Just another cycle of sports life rotating another rev and returning to the same spot.
Since the guy’s crushed almost every argument (and those he hasn’t may be academic within a couple of years), I’d like to raise a different issue, one I think the PGA had better seriously start considering: Is he going to kill the sport?
I mean, for starters, who the hell are his peers? His rivals? His big matchups and bitter foes and potential usupers? No one is within fifty miles of him right now. Phil Mickelson (who’d be a megastar in any other era) is all but an afterthought now, and he’s by far Tiger’s strongest opponent. Everyone who’s chased him or was touted as a rival has gone down in flames…remember Sergio Garcia? During the heyday of Jack & Arnie (golf’s last great rivalry for a long, long time), there were a whole bunch of other big names who were always in there. Heck, I remember some of them: Seve Ballesteros, Bernhard Langer, Tom Kite, Mark Calcaveccia, Vijay Singh, Fuzzy Zoeller, Steven Ames, and Justin Leonard, among others. There were reasons to watch other than The Man To Beat, who often wasn’t even Jack or Arnie.
When there’s only one man in there who has a prayer, what’s the point of watching? Sure, there’s always the battle for second (and I’ve seen some very entertaining ones), but that’s generally a pretty tough sell.
Where’s the next black (or blackish; I definitely don’t mean to be discriminatory here) PGA phenom? Whoever tries to follow in Tiger’s footsteps will be in his shadow for his entire career, and there’s no way in hell he’ll come within a continent of measuring up…and this is in addition to the normal frustrations of golf. Who’s going to pass up a lucrative NBA, NFL, or even MLS career to compete in a sport with no guaranteed money whatsoever, no prepaid expenses, and a very hard fight every season just to be in the next?
What happens after Tiger retires? Can fans readjust to 4-foot putts lipping out, somewhat-less-than-spectacular rough shots, laying up on dangerous par 5’s, errant sand saves, and long stretches of pars? For that matter, who will pay to watch what will be at that point a bunch of nobodies?
Yeah…what’s with the constant negativity, DKW? Well, I’m seeing a lot of trouble on the horizon, trouble that I never saw with Michael Jordan (far from univerally loved, and plenty of other superstars active in his time), Pete Sampras (all too human; nb. his clay record), Wayne Gretzky (great individual stats, but it didn’t always translate to championships), Greg Louganis (fringe sport), Lance Armstrong (ditto), or Jerry Rice (tremendous but not ungodly hype; playing with Joe Montana for so long definitely helped).
Don’t get me wrong, it’s cool that I’m alive to witness a truly monumental period in a sport (on par with Louganis, who I doubt will ever be eclipsed), but all the same, I’m having a little difficulty being happy about it.
Not until golf becomes winner-take-all. We’re having too much fun watching him go for previously unheard-of achievements. Can he complete the calendar year slam? Can he go undefeated in a year? He is single-handedly boosting interest and participation in the sport. When he leaves, there might be a downward blip in interest, but the interest built during the Tiger years will be too strong to die off.
I actually think it currently helps golf for him to be so singularly dominant right now. He is likeable, great at what he does, keeps out of trouble, and is fun to watch. It’s interesting to watch various potential foes rise up, test him a bit, and get swatted down. Even some of the better ones like Mickelson repeatedly rise up, but Tiger always manages to overcome them.
The interesting thing will be 10 years from now. There is a generation of future golfers out there right now doing things like getting driver’s licenses, starting puberty, turning 10, and learning to walk. Some of them will be driven to try and do what Tiger has done. I’d imagine in 10 years, we will end up with a whole batch of players like an improved Mickelson but not as good as Tiger which means there will be no ubergolfer, but the overall competition will be better than ever.
When I see Tiger, I think of Babe Ruth. Someone that does things previously thought impossible and changes the accepted and expected parameters of the game.
No, he isn’t going to kill the sport, because the average consumer is an idiot, and loves a simple, attractive, predictable package.
Have to admit, tho, his dominance bores the shit out of me. In my mind, no question he is the best ever. Only way you would get any argument is if you defined “best” as requiring a career of a certain length. But I get a heck of a lot more enjoyment out of watching tournaments he is not in. If Tiger is playing, the only question is whether he is on his game or not.
-If he is, then he wins. Especially if he is in the lead going into the final round. I don’t get a heck of a thrill out of watching the inevitable.
-If he isn’t, well, he’s still the main story, and still might come out of nowhere and win it. He deserves all the credit in the world for coming back against Ernie in Dubai, and against JB this past week. But both occurances disappointed me tremendously.
It will be interesting to see how long he can/will continue at this level. Hell, look at Fred Funk, winning at 50, or Vijay going strong into his 40s. It is mind-boggling to think that Tiger, after accumulating record titles and wealth, will keep going for another 2 decades. Will also be interesting to see how long he keeps going should he ever “lose a step” to age. But as long as he’s winning every event he enters, I’ll be tuning in the ladies, seniors, Nationwide, or even a good putt-putt match.
I don’t know. I’m torn between that area of thought and another Dinsdale. I wait for the shots that Tiger makes that become legend. Like the 274 yard 2-iron over a lake that he stuck to 5 feet or the 20-yard hook he hit around a tree and stuck like a dart 10 feet away or the times he salvaged par from a disastrous tee shot? Yeah, it gets boring to see Tiger dominate, but it will all be worth it when it happens.
“It”, being the time that he doesn’t mount the charge. The time where someone runs him down from a 3 stroke deficit on Sunday. That will all be worth it.