Jeez. :rolleyes: My point was perfectly clear (I thought) and exactly the opposite: in
general, luck (in whatever form it takes-things outside the players’ control
basically) tends to reduce the effect of talent. Silly illustrative example: if field goal
kickers had to kick field goals while dealing with 100 knot hurricane winds, then the
skill of the individual kickers matters hardly at all. About the only significant outside
agency in tennis is the wind-on a grass court, arguably bad bounces (doesn’t stop
Federer there)-you could have argued the refs before this season, but instant replay
pretty much eliminated that. In golf there could be tons of little things-in all a golfer
doesn’t have quite the control of his outcomes that a tennis player does-and he
has fewer chances to make up for the bad bounces which do come his way.
So in golf, a player’s chances are affected by the surface, the weather and potential bad bounces, while in tennis, they’re affected only by the surface, the weather and bad bounces. Gotcha. 
I don’t really disagree with what you’re saying about the bad bounces - in golf, the size of the field alone makes for a greater number of possible winners, and the nature of the games (playing against a course vs. playing against a single opponent) changes a lot of things. Still, I don’t see any way you can say Tiger’s year (or his last two years, or three) was better than Federer over the same period.
Do more? Only one of the three could guard the other team’s best player, bring the ball up the court and initiate the offense, score from the post, score from the perimeter, score on dribble drives, and distribute the ball. Only one of the three could create offense on his own. Only one could make a jumper, or for that matter, a god-damn foul shot. Bill Russell was a great rebounder, a great defender, and was very good at starting and finishing the break. But he was a 14 point a game scorer, on 45% shooting… considering that by far, the most valuable thing a player can do for his team is get a basket when it’s needed, I’d say that alone disqualifies him. Wilt, ultimately, was a big deal because of his scoring numbers, but he scored less than Jordan. There really isn’t much of an argument to be had here, and I haven’t even gotten to the part that made Jordan really special.
If he’s more recent, he can’t be the best? Or does this mean you don’t really buy into your own argument, or what?
Only in the sense that if you say something, it’s there, regardless of how wrong it is. If we’re making a top anything list of basketball players, Jordan was, at worst, first. Not even Magic Johnson would say that Magic Johnson was a better player than Michael Jordan. Hell of a player, obviously, but it’s not close.
Statistically, taking everything into account, Jordan was arguably the best ever; but arguably not. Now add to that the fact that he did things physically that nobody else ever did; that he played the game at a level of athletic efficiency that didn’t even seem real. More importantly, add to that the fact that, once Jordan got on top, he won every single NBA title that was contested while he was in the league, save for his time with the Wizards. He was never beaten, and in each and every one of those playoffs he personally was the difference between winning and losing. And while I’m at it, this –
is the current leader in the clubhouse for the falsest thing ever said. It’s so violently false I’m vomiting all over myself as I type. Scottie Pippen was a nice player. Dennis Rodman was an incredible physical force; extremely underrated for what he did on the court. It’s safe to say, I think, that if you replaced those two with, say, me and my brother, the Bulls wouldn’t have won all those titles. But to say that those guys made Michael Jordan, rather than the other way around, is silly.
What exactly do Scottie Pippen, Toni Kukoc, and Horace Grant have to recommend themselves other than the fact that they were on the court while Jordan hit the shots that won all those championships? Why else would you even know those guys’ names? OK, Pippen had some game, he’d have been a very useful all-around guy on any team; the others were incredibly replaceable. What did they ever do individually? I can tell you what Jordan did without any of them – averaged 37/5/5, 3 steals, and a block and a half while dragging a team full of guys whose names we’ve already forgotten into the playoffs. As a 23 year old. Then he averaged 44/6/6 in the playoffs (swept by Bird in his prime… what can you do?). Shit, if that’s nothing, I don’t even want to know what things are.
I’m saying you can really say anything, either way-the sports are too different, and
not just in this way. Tiger’s best period was 5-6 years ago (tho his recent
performance likely is almost as good). I can probably get away with comparing Tiger
to Jack, tho I have to make an estimate as to the relative strength of the fields-
Tiger’s contemporaries were deeper overall than Jack’s but I get the feeling that
more people-Trevino, Watson, etc.-rose to the challenge against Jack than have
against Woods. But I probably can’t really say much comparing Tiger to someone
in another individual sport. So far nobody’s risen to Roger’s challenge either,
FWIW (you could argue Mickelson did for a couple of years but he seems to
have cooled off).
Sorry to bump, but I have another thought on this debate.
Federer plays all the friggin’ time, almost to a fault. He feels it’s his duty to play as many tournaments as he can in order to help the sport and give the fans their money’s worth. Tiger doesn’t play as many of the tournaments, but he does still play in non-major events.
Tiger doesn’t win a lot of the non-majors, and in response to criticism about that his reply was that he only cared about the majors, so you should only judge him in the majors. Federer, OTOH, is every bit as dominating in the podunk events as he is in the slams.
This past week, for example, while Federer dominated the Australian by winning it without dropping a single set – a feat unmatched in the last 27 years for any slam – Tiger failed to win a minor tournament. “Federer failed to win a minor tournament” is not something you can say very often.
Until Federer wins the French Open (which he may do this year) I will go with Tiger.
Tough comparison, just because Federer’s career is still relatively short. But Woods had a rough spot for a couple of years where people were telling him to stop tinkering with his swing, sportscasters were noting that ‘the other golfers didn’t fear him anymore, etc’. He’s broken out of that slump, and might be in the midst of another dominant phase equal to the one 5-6 years ago (come on, who doesn’t get goosebumps watching him walk after his ball, finger-stabbing it as it goes in the hole?). But the fact is, Woods hasn’t had an unbroken stretch of dominance.
Federer has been at the top of the tennis world for going on four years and shows absolutely no signs of slowing down. Federer beat Sampras back in 2001, when Sampras was going for his fifth-straight Wimbledon victory; at the time he noted that Federer was something special.
It’s flat-out harder to dominate in tennis: one bad half-hour, and you go home. One semi-bad round in golf, and you can come out the next day and try again (not to mention that your competition could blow it and come back to you instead of extending the lead).
Major wins: 10 majors in four years, versus 12 in 10 years. Total tour victories: Federer has 46 since 2001, Woods has 55 since 1996.
That should pretty much end the debate, really.
The hockey fans in this hijack are forgetting the most beautiful skater and most talented hockey player to ever play the game. I’d say the top three are clearly Bobby Orr, followed by Gretzky, followed by Howe. Orr was the true complete player, who would out-skate, out-hit, out-punch, out-score, and out-hustle. When has a defenceman ever won the league scoring title? How is that even possible?
Okay once again…
- It is easier to dominate tennis than it is to dominate golf. Reasons?
A. The “luck” factor figures into the results of a golf tournament more than it does a tennis
tournament. Many things can go here, including weather, “rubs of the green” (a golf course is
a much more uncontrolled environment than a tennis court), etc. etc. Thus talent has a
greater say over the outcome in tennis than it does in golf, where a few inches here and
there can mean the difference between 1st and 6th place.
B. Golfers can be dominant for a much longer time than tennis players can. Who was the
oldest to win a tennis major? Andre at 34-35 IIRC. For golf many 40 somethings have won
majors, including Jack at 46.
C. The competition is more wide-open in a stroke play golf tournament than it is in a single-
elimination tennis tournament. On a typical Sunday Roger only has to worry about the guy
across the net. On a typical Sunday Tiger has to worry about upwards of a dozen other
players possibly.
D. Tennis tournaments have a much larger number of strokes (thousands) per
player than does golf (270-300), which makes it easier for talent to trump luck.
Upshot it is easier to dominate tennis for a short period of time-a number of players have
ruled for half a dozen years, but that seems to be about it for a prime peak. Golfers can
dominate for a short period at a seemingly lesser level, but some can dominate for upwards
of two decades. Even then we still have golfers who can win 3 out of 4 majors in one year.
Look at Grand Slams (or Tiger Slams, or Steffi Slams if you like): 3 in 80 years in golf, some-
thing like half a dozen in 40 years of tennis (tho I am going to be late for work and will
research that when I get home).
Ignore women’s tennis. The field there is as thin as it is in women’s golf. Women’s sports in general are much easier to dominate because of the inferior competition. Unless you want to include LPGA numbers, WTA numbers are unfair to bring up.
If it is easier to dominate a sport, then in general the greats will be more dominant, not less. For example, Annika Sorenstam was more dominant than Tiger. So is Federer. Compare winning percentages against the rest of the tour. Federer wins virtually everything, whereas Tiger wins a plurality of events. That makes Federer indisputably more dominant.
You make a better case for which dominance is more impressive, though I’d probably still offer a counter-argument. But in terms of dominance, quite frankly it isn’t even close. This is mostly a GQ type question with a factual answer, which DragonAsh already provided:
Sorry, but I think Walter Ray Williams, Jr. beats all other competitors mentioned in this thread. Complete dominance in TWO professional sports? Beat that!
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What? 
Well, you know what I am willing to concede Federere is more dominant. But Tiger’s “lesser” dominance is more impressive, IMO. It’s like saying, Ripkin’s streak is longer but Favre’s is more impressive.
Tho I am definitely more a fan of golf than tennis, I have no opinion on whether Woods or Federer is more dominant. But I wanted to comment on one aspect that I don’t think has been discussed much in this thread. Is there any way to assess the level of competition on the golf vs tennis tours, and would that make a difference?
I haven’t gotten into the stats lately, but I seem to remember that golf scoring stats can be pretty consistent pretty deep. The difference between player #1 and player #50 may be as little as 1 or 2 strokes per round over the course of an entire year. Is there any way to assess things this way in tennis?
It has been mentioned above that “no name” golfers can win tourneys - even majors, whereas it is my impression that rarely if ever happens in tennis. It seems to me that that fact might attest to the strength of competition for golfers. In tennis, how many different players win tournaments in a given year? It seems to me as tho it has always been the case where a relatively small number of players - maybe less than 5 - would win the majority of tourneys they entered. I’m not sure the same has been true in golf.
If there is a large gap between the top tennis players and everyone else, the seeding should help amplify that. In a tournament, Federer need only play the #2 and 3 players once - if they both make it to the final. In golf, every player’s score counts every day.
Final observation, as a golf fan, tho I’m amazed at Woods’ accomplishments, I would prefer it if he were not so dominant. For me, it really pisses me off when I see the competition fade down the stretch. Growing up, Nicklaus was tough, but there were also Player, Trevino, Miller, Watson, and a couple of others who would go head to head with him (at least for stretches in his career). As a fan, I’d prefer to have a strong ongoin rivalry, than one player dominance. Any similar thoughts form tennis - or other golf - fans out there?
I just used Steffi as an example of a pseudo Grand Slam, and agree that I’m not really
going to look at either women’s tours. [Checking] She actually won the real thing
in 1988.
Well for me relative impressiveness is the only thing which counts, if assessing
the question posed in the thread’s header: given what both men have done so
far, have there been other similarly impressive performances in their respective
sports? I.e. the mistake to make is to compare them to each other, ignoring the
vast differences in their fields, when you should be comparing them to both their
peers as well as past greats in their respective sports, and only then returning
to the original comparison.
Only Jack Nicklaus measures up to what Woods has done: Bobby Jones played
against weak amateur fields for half of his majors, and Hogan’s run, while
impressive, was not nearly as sustained. I do think some players have wilted
when in there against Tiger, while more people were up to the challenge vs. Jack.
But overall I think Tiger’s fields were a bit deeper (IMHO the depth on the PGA
Tour was pretty thin up to around 1960-1970 sometime, and has leveled off since).
I would put Pete up against Federer any day, and (ignoring differences in training
and sportsmedicine across eras which are always problematic) perhaps Laver.
Again like Woods, and unlike Nicklaus and Sampras, Roger has no clear rival. [The
tennis player does suffer when looking back historically because of the strange
no-professionals rule which tennis had up to 1969.] In other words what both
men have been doing for the last several years is very comparable, too close to
call really; they have both dominated their respective sports to a degree rarely
witnessed in either. That’s all anyone can really say.
Wikipedia lists something called the “Small Slam”, which is 3 majors in one year:
including the amateur era, it’s been done 9 times in tennis. In golf, it’s been
done 3 times, again including the amateur era. I think that does a pretty good
job of showing how relatively difficult it is to dominate each sport like that.
You win the thread. Perfect analogy.
Dinsdale raised the legitimate depth of field question. Checking the ATP official site, apparently Baghdatis just won something called the “PBZ Zagreb Indoors” after his ranking fell outside the top 20. I’m guessing that not many of the players who made it to the second week of the Australian were in that tournament, though.
The 2006 results show the following players winning tournaments through September 11th:
8 Federer, Roger
5 Nadal, Rafael
3 Blake, James
3 Davydenko, Nikolay
3 Haas, Tommy
2 Clement, Arnaud
2 Gasquet, Richard
2 Ljubicic, Ivan
2 Robredo, Tommy
1 Acasuso, Jose
1 Almagro, Nicolas
1 Ancic, Mario
1 Baghdatis, Marcos
1 Bracciali, Daniele
1 Calleri, Agustin
1 Djokovic, Novak
1 Ferrer, David
1 Fish, Mardy
1 Hewitt, Lleyton
1 Horna, Luis
1 Karlovic, Ivo
1 Melzer, Jurgen
1 Massu, Nicolas
1 Moya, Carlos
1 Murray, Andy
1 Nalbandian, David
1 Nieminen, Jarkko
1 Philippoussis, Mark
1 Rochus, Olivier
1 Roddick, Andy
1 Serra, Florent
1 Stepanek, Radek
1 Wawrinka, Stanislas
Not sure what this data is telling us; is the field strong, or are there just so many friggin’ tournaments that most of the top players skip the lesser events? I don’t know enough about the tour to speculate.
In any case, the first 54 events of 2006 crowned 33 different players as champion. (For whatever that’s worth.)
ETA: One thought that occured to me is comparing Tiger to the New England Patriots. Both just came in (tied for) 3rd in their most recent tournaments, and since parity is built into the NFL, one could argue that the Patriots are more dominant than Tiger using the same logic that Tiger is more dominant than Federer.
I’m not entirely sure I’d even have a problem with tha logic; just throwing it out there as something to consider.
Your stats illustrate the difficulty of comparing. There are nowhere near 54 official PGA events in a year. Essentially 1 per week from roughly Jan through Oct. (I could look it up, but this is close enough for now.)
And the average top golfer plays in only a fraction of them. The 4 majors for sure, generally the other “big” tourneys, and then a few others depending on his training schedule, travel preferences, relationship with sponsors, and the like. I believe Tiger might play in no more than 15-20 tourneys a year. Just last weekend he (and Els) was playing in Dubai, instead of the PGA Tour event in Scottsdale. So of course, a wider range of players will win on the PGA tour than might be the case if the top 10 or so entered every event.
Vijay Singh is an exception - he plays just about every week. That led to a dispute a couple of years back when Vijay had more wins (or more earnings) than Tiger. Most people thought Tiger had the better season because his wins were in bigger tourneys and represented a greater percentage of his starts.
Do you have any info on how many tourneys Federer - or an average top tennis player - might play?
I was thinking about a couple of other factors that, to me, made the comparison of golf vs. tennis difficult.
As a famous golfer said one time when asked to compare golf to hitting major league pitching, “Golfers have to play their foul balls.” In my mind, a point in tennis is the rough equivalent of a stroke in golf. If a tennis player hits a bad shot into the stands or the net, the result is that he loses that point. And the next point begins from the same pristine starting point. As each serve begins, each player can only gain or lose a maximum advantage of one point. In golf, if you hit it into the trees, weeds, or sand, you have to hit it from there, or take a penalty for a lost ball or unplayable lie. And if Woods bogies or double bogies a hole, any one of the other golfers in the tournament might par, birdie, or eagle that hole, resulting in a 2, 3, or 4 stroke swing.
I mentioned the “pristine” starting position for each tennis point. I understand there are different surfaces, and there can be weather variations, but aren’t the basic dimensions for every court/net the same? Golf courses and individual holes can favor people with different games/ball flights. The long hitter, the precision “target” golfer, a preference to play left-to-right or right-to-left, big greens/little greens, links vs woods courses, and many other factors. And different grasses which might be somewhat comparable to tennis surfaces. It seems as tho an argument might be made that dominance in golf requires more versatility than tennis. And I’m not sure there is a style of course Woods has not won on, while I believe Federer has had trouble with clay.
Here’s another factor - which may reveal my ignorance of tennis. My understanding is that between 2 closely paired players, the server has a significant advantage such that matches are to a large part determined by who breaks the other’s serve more often. A player could win his matches simply by “holding his own” - winning his service games, and losing all but 1 or 2 of his opponent’s service games per set. In golf, even if Woods is playing even with his playing partners, the possibility exists that any other golfer in the field could be going low on any holes at any time.
Maybe I’m not adding much to the discussion, but just wanted to offer one golfer’s thoughts.
Do tennis fans like Federer’s dominance? Or for enjoyable viewing would you prefer him to have more competition?
Federer has to be the most underrated superstar in the history of sports. He’s so good I hardly even watch the men’s draw in the Grand Slams. It all feels like a charade. I’ll burn a hundred dollar bill if he doesn’t win Wimbledon and the US Open this year.
Serve is an important part in tennis, but is not THE most important. There is a thing in Tennis called the tie-break, and although it may appear the big server has an advanatge on these, it is not necesarily true. Also, on slower surfaces like clay, the serve loses quite a bit of importance.
In a match between two closley ranked players, it is the player who takes the advantage in crucial points that wins the match, not necesarily the harder server. There are too many factors in tennis to be able to pin point in single aspect in the game that will be definitive in close matches. Sometimes, pure luck can be “all” you need to win hard matches.
But mind you, Federer is NOT luck, he is just that good.
Also, Federer ended last year with 12 tournaments. He has managed to win at least 10 tournaments the last 3 years in a consecutive fashion.
It’s true that all tennis courts are the same dimensions. The surfaces have some effect, but it’s nowhere near the differences in course layout on a golf course. However, you’ve got another human across the net returning your shots. Is he going to power it at the baseline, do a drop shot, slice it back to you, aim for your backhand/forehand, go for the passing shot, charge the net for a volley, or what?
So I’d say that while the lie in the golf is always changing while the ball stays the same, in tennis it’s the ball (trajectory) that’s always changing while the lie stays the same. In the end, I might call that a wash. Especially if you consider what a “pristine reset” even means when you aren’t serving. The other guy hitting a 130 mph shot at you isn’t really a pristine start, is it?
You mentioned the 54 tournaments in tennis. Remember, that’s just through 9/11. The page hadn’t been updated with the results of the last couple dozen events yet.
Regarding the serve, in a nutshell you are expected to win your serve. So much so that losing a serve has its own term: the break. A comparison might be a 7 game series in MLB/NBA/NHL where you would expect to win your home games, though it’s more pronounced in tennis. Of course, it’s possible to play an entire match without either player ever having his serve broken and still declare a winner.
And personally, I love Federer’s dominance because of how he wins. He is not a big server; his wins come from carefully constructed points. It’s his amazing court coverage and shot making ability that impress me, and those are on full display even when he’s crushing his opponent.
Take the Roddick match, for example. Federer made a couple plays there that were so unbelievably good they almost took my breath away. To a large extent, his greatness is not dependent on his opponent’s ability.
Thought I’d make one final point, after Tiger’s loss yesterday in this week’s
Match Play Championship. From ESPN:
The closest you’ll get to this kind of thing is at Wimbledon, playing on the grass,
where you might get a bad bounce here and there. But there the serve is so
dominant, and as I said upthread you might have hundreds of shots per match
that would allow you to come back from a bad bounce on a key point. In golf you
only have 70 shots or so thus any one has a greater effect on the outcome of the
match.
In any event I am sure that if golfers played match play all the time that Tiger
probably would only have 6-8 majors by now. One bad bounce and you’re out of
the tournament.