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[Matt_Ward]

When discussions come up on Tiger v Jack the first topic generally deals with total overall majors.

Some people don't even agree that the benchmark is Jack's 18 professional majors. Dan Jenkins, the noted author and writer, says that wins in the US and British Am can count provided the player has also won a professional major. I like how Dan threw in that little connecting argument in order to include such wins.

Far too often Jack's record is not fully flushed out. The Bear not only won 18 (the total I use) majors but finished 19 times. That's truly mindboggling and indicates his presence was ALWAYS there.

But there's even more than just the second place finishes. Although Jack won "only" three BO titles, he finished in the top 10 a remarkable 15 consecutive years from 1966-1980.

In the history of the game that accomplishment has only been matched or bettered by three other players. Be interested to find out if anyone on this board can name the players and the specific major.

[Martin Del Vecchio]

I can't answer that question.

But here is Bobby Jones' complete record in the US Open, starting at age 18:

1920:  T8
1921:  T5
1922:  T2
1923:  1
1924:  2
1925:  2
1926:  1
1927:  T11
1928:  2
1929:  1
1930:  1

That's pretty impressive in a national championship, in any era, against any competition.

[Matt_Ward]

Martin:

The Jones record in the US Open is quite impressive. But there are others like Jack who went a few steps further.

[Tommy Williamsen]

Walter Hagen won five PGA titles between 1921 and 1927 when it was match play and four US Opens in the 20's.

James Braid won five British Opens between 1901 and 1910 in the Vardon/Taylor era.

[Paul Thomas]

Hogan had a great streak in US open

maybe Vardon in the British???

[Martin Del Vecchio]

OK, I figured out one:  Ben Hogan in the US Open.  In 15 appearances between 1940 and 1960, he always finished in the top 10.

By year:

1940:  T5
1941:  T3
1942:  NT
1943:  NT
1944:  NT
1945:  NT
1946:  T4
1947:  T6
1948:  1
1949:  DNP
1950:  1
1951:  1
1952:  3
1953:  1
1954:  T6
1955:  2
1956:  T2
1957:  DNP
1958:  T10
1959:  T8
1960:  T9

NT = No Tournament, DNP = Did Not Play

Edit:  Hogan also had a run of 13 consecutive top-10 finishes in the Masters from 1939 to 1956, including 2 wins.  He missed the cut in 1957.

[Matt_Ward]

Martin:

You missed the meaning of the word "consecutive." If you miss an event -- such as an injury then the streak comes to a halt.

No doubt the Hogan record is quite impressive but it's not consecutive.

Paul T:

Correct on Vardon -- he had 15 top ten years in a row in the BO.

Tommy W:

Correct on James Braid as well. Ditto the mentioning of Taylor. Both of them finished 17 times in the top ten in the BO.

No doubt the Nicklaus record is even more compelling since the depth of competition was far deeper than what the great trio encountered.

[Phil McDade]

But there's even more than just the second place finishes. Although Jack won "only" three BO titles, he finished in the top 10 a remarkable 15 consecutive years from 1966-1980.

In the history of the game that accomplishment has only been matched or bettered by three other players. Be interested to find out if anyone on this board can name the players and the specific major.

Hogan, US Open, 1940-1960 (with an asterisk? US Open not played between '42-'45, Hogan did not play in '49 because of the accident, and he did not play majors in 1957. Hogan nearly accomplished the same thing at the Masters, with 14 top 10s from 1939-1956, not counting WW II skipped tourneys there.)

Vardon, British Open, 1894-1908 (interestingly, two of his record six wins came after this streak.)

JH Taylor, British Open, 1893-1909 (17 in a row; interestingly, he had a win and five other top 10s after this streak.)

Taylor accomplished something in one of his BOpen wins that has yet to be duplicated. Can you name it?

[David_Tepper]

Off the top of my head, either Peter Thompson, Henry Cotton or Bobby Locke may have notched 15 top-10's in the British Open.

[Jim Sullivan]

This argument seems to suggest that simply contending for a Championship is a comparable measure of greatness as actually winning is...I think I would disagree.

How many of Jack's second place finishes do you think he would give up for one more US Open?

[David Stamm]

Martin:

You missed the meaning of the word "consecutive." If you miss an event -- such as an injury then the streak comes to a halt.

No doubt the Hogan record is quite impressive but it's not consecutive.

 

Matt, come on. Consecutive or not, the man did what Tiger did at Torrey from 1950 on. While this does not constitute consecutive, or we not to credit Tigers streaks from the past because of long periods between tournaments played? Hogan's record on a bad wheel trumps JN's record at the British, although that is quite impressive in of itself. My vote goes to the hawk.

[David Stamm]

Walter Hagen won five PGA titles between 1921 and 1927 when it was match play and four US Opens in the 20's.

 

Tommy, Hagen only won 2 U.S. Opens. You may be confusing his British Open record.

[Matt_Ward]

David S:

Let me say this again -- the word consecutive is not defined by Matt Ward or anyone else for that matter. It means what it means. I'm not diminishing the records of others but highlighting what Nicklaus accomplished as being a force for such a long and sustained amount of time.

Keep this in mind with Tiger - when he gets off to a good start in a major it's likely he will win it. But, should he start slow the likelihood is that he will not be able to overcome the shots that have been frittered away early in the event.

One other thing -- no disrespect to Hogan but the fields Nicklaus encountered were stock with more actual contenders.

JES II:

You make it sound like 2nd place in a major is something akin to being just a bit better than making the cut. C'mon -- give me a break please.

In a number of cases Jack finished simply one shot back and his seconds came because someone of quality actually beat him with superlative play. Tiger's main competition for majors have come from the likes of Rich Beem, Zach Johnson, Bob May and recently Rocco Mediate. Where are all the other so-called big names such as Phil, Ernie, Vijay, Sergio, Scott, Furyk, et al?

Go back and see how Jack was beaten in the '82 US Open at PB by Watson. Tom won the event with a dramatic play at the 71st hole. I would just love to see one of Tiger's main rivals rise up instead of throw up on themselves.

[Jim Sullivan]

Matt,

It was a simple question...and an opinion is certainly acceptable. I would not ask you to go ask Jack the question...

"How many of Jack's second place finishes do you think he would give up for one more US Open?"


To be clear, it is my opinion that "simply contending" in a major championship is a phenomenal feat, but Jack and Tiger would probably view it a bit differently, agreed?

[Matt_Ward]

JES II:

No doubt Jack, or any other golfer of note, would like to have a 5th US Open. So would Ben Hogan. So would Bob Jones. Shall I go on.

I understand that Tiger and Jack are solely focused on winning -- they don't see second place finishes as moral equivalents and I didn't suggest they were.  But, I also don't think seconds should be thrown out the window as just any finish. Jack lost heartbreakers to people who played superlative golf -- go back and watch the tape of Watson versus the Bear at Turnberry in '77, the Masters that same year and the '82 US Open. There are others of this type.

When the hell does any of the so-called big names in Tiger's time frame step up to the plate and deliver. I mean Bob May and Rocco Mediate showed more b*lls than the rest of the big names combined.

I never said a second is equal to a win -- but it needs to be valued and placed in some sort of meaningful context. Jack's amount of seconds in a career is not a downer to me -- it's an indicator that he was ALWAYS THERE. When Tiger gets off to a good start in a major you can be sure he will be there at the end. When he doesn't -- it's more than likely he won't be anywhere near the very top.

[Jim Sullivan]

Matt,

No doubt about the failures of todays supporting cast of stars...they have come up empty.

One argument I have with your implication is that a second to Tom Watson is better than a second to Rich Beem...

A couple of key points about standing up to Tiger (admittedly, all are non-superstars):

2003 British Open at Royal St. George's - Tiger had the lead early in that round (after a birdie on #7 I believe)
PGA won by Rich Beem (forget which year) - Tiger was in the hunt the whole time and birdied the last 4 holes.
2000 PGA - Bob May shot 66 in rounds 2, 3 and 4 for an 18 under par total...has that ever been surpassed?

[Jim Nugent]

I posted this a little while ago, and perhaps it bears repeating here.  Plenty of guys have shot good or great rounds at Tiger at the end of majors.  Here are some examples:

1998 Br. Open    Mark O'Meara: 68, beat Tiger by two even though TW shot 66
1999 PGA           Sergio Garcia:  71, pushed Tiger to last hole
2000 PGA           Bob May: 66, forced Tiger to sink birdie on 72nd to tie
2001 Masters     David Duval: 67...72 hole total 274...Tiger had to shoot 68 and 272 to win
2002 PGA           Rich Beem: 67, beat Tiger even though Woods staged furious rally on final 9
2005 Masters     Chris DiMarco: 68, forced playoff, beat all others by 7 strokes
2005 U.S. Open  Michael Campbell: 69, played near-flawless final 9, only player to match par for 72 holes
2006 Masters     Phil Mickelson: shot 69, played near-flawless golf final 18 to win
2006 Br. Open    Chris DiMarco: 68, Tiger had to shoot 67 (low round of day) to win by 2 at -18
2007 Masters     Zach Johnson: 69, low round of the day, to win
2007 U.S. Open  Angel Cabrera: 69, 2nd-best round of the day, to win

Don't forget, Jack often benefited from poor to indifferent play from others, and downright gifts.  Arnie shot 74 in the playoff at Oakmont.  Sanders missed the 3-footer to win at St. Andrews.  Seve and Norman both collapsed in 1986.  Brewer shot 78 in the playoff at ANGC in 1966, and Jacobs could do no better than par.  In 1972 at Augusta Jack could only manage 74 the final round, but won anyway because the best his competitors could do was 73.  Same year at Pebble Jack shot 74 the last round, but won by three when 2nd place Bruce Crampton shot 76.


 

[Chris Cupit]

In a number of cases Jack finished simply one shot back and his seconds came because someone of quality actually beat him with superlative play. Tiger's main competition for majors have come from the likes of Rich Beem, Zach Johnson, Bob May and recently Rocco Mediate. Where are all the other so-called big names such as Phil, Ernie, Vijay, Sergio, Scott, Furyk, et al?

Go back and see how Jack was beaten in the '82 US Open at PB by Watson. Tom won the event with a dramatic play at the 71st hole. I would just love to see one of Tiger's main rivals rise up instead of throw up on themselves.

But, who had the most runner-up finishes to Jack Nicklaus?  Palmer, Player, trevino??

I think it was Bruce Crampton.  Certainly a fine player but that's who was breathing down Jack's neck most often when he won  

Jack--greatest golfer of the 20th century
Tiger--greatest of the 21st

Both are awesome and I am fortunate to have been able to watch them both. 

I do agree with JES though--those champions would trade all their runner-up finishes for one more championship--that's why they are who they are.

[Chuck Brown]

This is slightly off the topic, but to me the debate over the records of Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus, with respect to "whose was better," is not nearly as interesting as, "How eerily similar their golfing careers have been."
Very nearly matched from year to year in their respective lives, and with the additional similarities of the involvement of their respective fathers, both losing them to cancer mid-career, etc., etc.

I just think it is amazing that Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus, born about 40 years apart and in different worlds culturally, are in many ways more alike than Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson who were born in the same city, in the same year, and caddied together at the same club as kids.

[Mike_Clayton]

David Pepper.

Peter Thomson was in the top 10 in The Open 18 times in 21 years.

[Jim Nugent]

Mike Clayton, I'd be real interested to hear your thoughts on whether the competition was better in Jack's day or now...who you pick as the better golfer.  No one else on this board can have your perspective, I think. 

[Mike_Clayton]

Jim.

I think the players Jack beat - Palmer, Player, Watson, Casper, Miller,Trevino -  (and lost to) - were tougher to beat than Mickelson, Els Ogilvy, Goosen  but it is an unanswerable question really.
I do think the throwaway line that ' the players are better now' is very open to debate because I think the equipment makes players look so much better.
Most can drive like Norman did because if the modern ball and club versus balata and persimmon and Mickelson need 64 degrees to hit shots Seve was hitting with a 56 degree club.
Only truly great long iron players had that big high shot from 220 yards - Snead, Nicklaus, Weiskopf, Norman, Woods - but now everybody has it because of the hybrid.
The ball is clearly much easier to play with - especially for us in Australia and Britain where the first big balls we played with in the late 70s and early 80s were terrible in high winds.

I am not sure whether you saw Frank Hannigan's very interesting perepective on Geoff Shackelford's site but he gave the edge to Nicklaus with the driver,fairway woods but argued Tiger was better from 120 yards and in  - which is quite obvious.
I think the one equipment factor no one talks about is just how much better wedges are now.
It was somewhere between very difficult and impossible to find one sand club or wedge that looked or played anywhere  near as well as any one of a hundred wedges you can find in any pro shop in the world.

Nicklaus was awesome obviously and the question is whether he would have raised his game to beat Tiger more often than his rivals do now.
I think there is only one answer to that question.

I hope that makes some sense!!

[Kevin Pallier]

One statistic I like to look at is - Top3 finishes - shows if one regularly competed for Majors

Nicklaus (obviously) leads with = 46
Snead = 22
Tiger = 22*

Sarazen = 20
Jones = 19
Palmer = 19

Pretty impressive records by Nicklaus, Jones and Tiger - Jones in particular - given that he only entered 30 odd Majors.

[Tony_Chapman]

Matt -- If you recall my thread, I mentioned that it was fairly neat to compare Jack's 70s decade to Tiger now. Jack had 35 top-10s in the 40 majors in the 1970s. I believe he won eight.

In this decade, I believe Tiger has 12 wins and and 22 top-10s.

[Matt_Ward]

Hats off to Mike Clayton for the well done analysis from his perspective on Nicklaus v Woods.

Mike is quite correct and astute -- the very nature of the game has evolved greatly since the high times of the Golden Bear.

The ball today is a big difference -- ditto the nature of shafts, clubheads and the myriad of wedge clubs once can place into the bag. In the not so distant past players had to provide a degree of imagination that would come from manipulating the club/swing to fit the situation. Now it seems you simply pick a club for that task (e.g. the 64 degree wedge, to name just one instance) and go from there.

I salute the likes of Greg Norman when in his time he was a superb driver of the ball with the likes of clubs current pros do not play. Nicklaus was also a talented driver of the ball -- likely the finest combo of distance and accuracy the game has seen. I do agree that from within 120 yards you have to give Tiger his due. On the putting surfaces I see Tiger with the slightest of edges but Jack rarely missed anything within 6-7 feet when it counted most.

No doubt the argument of which player is better will still be discussed time after time but Mike's analysis does provide some clear perspective on what each man certainly brings to the table.

[Wayne_Kozun]

If you count the Ams then Tiger is one closer to Jack with 17 majors vs. Jack's 20.  One thing to consider is that golf is even much more of a global game now than it was 35 years agor when Jack was in his prime.  That would make it harder to dominate the game - until Seve came along at the end of Jack's career there were very few Europeans of top calibre.  There are far more today although you can argue that none have ever reached Seve's level.

[Chuck Brown]

Jim.

I think the players Jack beat - Palmer, Player, Watson, Casper, Miller,Trevino -  (and lost to) - were tougher to beat than Mickelson, Els Ogilvy, Goosen  but it is an unanswerable question really.
I do think the throwaway line that ' the players are better now' is very open to debate because I think the equipment makes players look so much better.
Most can drive like Norman did because if the modern ball and club versus balata and persimmon and Mickelson need 64 degrees to hit shots Seve was hitting with a 56 degree club.
Only truly great long iron players had that big high shot from 220 yards - Snead, Nicklaus, Weiskopf, Norman, Woods - but now everybody has it because of the hybrid.
The ball is clearly much easier to play with - especially for us in Australia and Britain where the first big balls we played with in the late 70s and early 80s were terrible in high winds.

I am not sure whether you saw Frank Hannigan's very interesting perepective on Geoff Shackelford's site but he gave the edge to Nicklaus with the driver,fairway woods but argued Tiger was better from 120 yards and in  - which is quite obvious.
I think the one equipment factor no one talks about is just how much better wedges are now.
It was somewhere between very difficult and impossible to find one sand club or wedge that looked or played anywhere  near as well as any one of a hundred wedges you can find in any pro shop in the world.

Nicklaus was awesome obviously and the question is whether he would have raised his game to beat Tiger more often than his rivals do now.
I think there is only one answer to that question.

I hope that makes some sense!!

With regard to "Nicklaus and equipment," one thing that needs to be said is that the ball that Jack played with through most of his best years was the MacGregor Tourney.  And the Tourney was a remarkably crappy ball, by any standards.  Most importantly, even by the standards of that era, the Tourney was a rotten ball, but it was part of Nicklaus' Macgregor contract.  Macgregor made some of the best clubs in the history of the game, but also some of the worst balls.

When Phil Mickelson made the very widely-misinterpreted comment that Tiger Woods played with "inferior" equipment (a poor choice of words to describe Woods' decidedly "retro" equipment featuring forged blades with loft and length specs that were more typical of 1965 than 2005), he didn't mean "poor quality" equipment.  But the balls that Jack Nicklaus played with, and won with, really were poor quality.  Mickelson could have rightly said that Nicklaus won with inferior equipment.

[Matt_Ward]

Wayne:

Fair enough.

You give me your top five foreign players that Tiger deals with now and I'll be sure to list the top five from Jack's. Gary Player is one of them -- how about the likes of Tony Jacklin, Bruce Crampton, etc, etc.

Despite all the foreign players you see today -- few of them (where's Adam Scott been in a major, etc, etc) you rarely see them breaking ground down the stretch of a big one thus far.

One last thing -- Wayne the US Amateur is no longer a major and really stopped being one with the conclusion of World War II. For many, the Am wins for Bob Jones can count as such but not for the likes of Nicklaus and Woods. For what it's worth -- Dan Jenkins would agree with you since he says US and British Am wins can county provided you have a professional major in tow.

[Mike_Clayton]

Chuck.

With regard to the Macgregor ball see the Jack Newton interview in Golf Digest - last month I think.
Nicklaus gave him a dozen ball at The Open in 1975 and Jack (Newton) said they were unbelievably good - and not the normal Macgregor ball.
As Jack tells the story Weiskopf (who was also a Macgregor player) asked where he got the balls and said ' I can't even get those balls!'

[Chuck Brown]

Chuck.

With regard to the Macgregor ball see the Jack Newton interview in Golf Digest - last month I think.
Nicklaus gave him a dozen ball at The Open in 1975 and Jack (Newton) said they were unbelievably good - and not the normal Macgregor ball.
As Jack tells the story Weiskopf (who was also a Macgregor player) asked where he got the balls and said ' I can't even get those balls!'

Mike, I remember seeing that several weeks ago, and had frankly forgotten about it until you just mentioned it.  I actually caddied for Jack in 1973, and the Tourneys that he used were regular Tourneys.  We put them all through a roundness guage in those days, and I remember that none of them flunked.  But I only did a half-dozen balls.  And, Jack gave me one to keep, along with his Star-Grip glove.

I have a theory about Jack Newton's story.  It is this; Newton is not lying, and the story happened the way he said.  But it was probably reflective of one particular new ball that Macgregor brought out in the spring of '75, and that Nicklaus was the first to get those prototype balls, at Augusta.  Macgregor probably distributed more protos to more pros immediately thereafter.  I refuse to believe that for the length and breadth of the Nicklaus/Weiskopf eras at Macgregor, Nicklaus was given a secret ball that on one else knew about, or was permitted to have.  As we all know, Macgregor simply gave up on the golf ball business in about -what- 1978? '79? '80?

[John Vander Borght]

Even if Jack was getting the same balls as all the other players isn't it possible that Macgregor was hand selected his to make sure they were top quality?  As Chuck said, none of them flunked the roundness test.  If that were a normal collection of balls in those days I'm sure some would have flunked otherwise why were they checking?

[Wayne_Kozun]

Wayne:

Fair enough.

You give me your top five foreign players that Tiger deals with now and I'll be sure to list the top five from Jack's. Gary Player is one of them -- how about the likes of Tony Jacklin, Bruce Crampton, etc, etc.
 ...
One last thing -- Wayne the US Amateur is no longer a major and really stopped being one with the conclusion of World War II.

Gary Player was a great player, arguably the best non-US player of the post WWII era but after that it was much weaker.  Certainly Els, Singh, Goosen, Garcia, Harrington, etc. are better than the non-American players in the Nicklaus era with the exception of Player.

But the foreign players are much more numerous than a few decades ago.  Currently 6 of the top 10 and 14 of the top 20 are not American.  I don't think they had the rankings when Jack was in his prime but I doubt that a majority of the best players in the game were not American at that time.

I agree that the US Am shouldn't be counted as a major but some folks do, and I was just pointing out that this brings Tiger closer to Jack as Tiger has 3 US Ams vs. Jack's 2.  I thought I read somewhere once that Jack counts the US Ams and says that he has 20 majors.

[Chuck Brown]

Even if Jack was getting the same balls as all the other players isn't it possible that Macgregor was hand selected his to make sure they were top quality?  As Chuck said, none of them flunked the roundness test.  If that were a normal collection of balls in those days I'm sure some would have flunked otherwise why were they checking?

I don't think so, John.  Most balls passed.  And I only did the balls he needed to play with that day.  He had three dozen in the bag!  Every once in a while, you might come across the odd sleeve where two or three of the balls got caught in the roundness gauge, but most balls passed.  (You could sure knock them out of round pretty quickly, though!)  Everybody could utilize a roundness gauge, so that was no big deal.  And there's no way on earth that I know of to 'hand select' golf balls.

[Jim Nugent]

Chuck, in what event did you caddy for Jack?  Any memories or stories you can tell us? 

I think caddying for Jack Nicklaus would have been incredibly cool. 

[TEPaul]

I have no idea what Macgregor did for their tournament players but my dad worked for Spalding in the 1950s and maybe into the early 60s and he said the balls for all their tournament players including their fairly large contingent of LPGA players were hand-picked and tested (roundness) in Chicopee, Mass before being distributed to the players. He said quality control in both balls and equipment could be a bit iffy sometimes.