Seeing Tiger in person; an experience!

[A.G._Crockett]

Chacun a son gout Tommy

I don't need to see the third replay of a putt, no less the fifth.  Get real.

Yes, but the advertisers do, and they pay the bills.

[Evan Fleisher]

I think to some extent the media has come to expect him to do the magical thing----and he does---so they continue to return to the well.

  Evan,

   That incident with Daly is part of why I said what I did. Then on Sunday he flails away from the rough on #17 . He doesn't really care what he shoots when he is not in contention.

Agreed...always looks like he is just "going through the motions" when in that position.

[Jim Nugent]

Shane, Player won 9 majors, Palmer won 5 majors, Watson won 8 majors, and oh yeah, Trevino won 6 majors.

For Nicklaus to win 18 majors and finish second 19 times is testament to the level of competition he faced.

How many repeat major winners has there been in the 10 years Tiger has competed?

Nicklaus won his majors over 25 years.  Tiger has won his, so far, over eight years.  The time difference alone makes the comparison somewhat less than useful.  

Competition was better during Jack´s time?  Just the opposite.   Back then few players outside the top ten were much of a threat to win majors.  That is why a smaller number of players put up such big numbers.  It´s also why Jack finished second so often.  (This is even more true of the Snead/Hogan/Nelson time, when real competition was even more limited.)  

Nowadays there are far more good players.  Almost anyone from the top 150 can get hot for a week and win the biggest tournaments.  Ben Curtis, I think, was ranked 396th in the world when he picked off the British Open.  

If Palmer, Player and Trevino had to face today´s field, I think they would have won less than they did.  And if they had to face Tiger Woods, their numbers would be lower still.  Or to put it another way, if Els, Mickelson and Vijay had played in the 1960´s thru the 1980´s, they would have racked up much bigger numbers than they have in the modern age.  

That´s my theory, anyway.  

[Shane Gurnett]

Shane, Player won 9 majors, Palmer won 5 majors, Watson won 8 majors, and oh yeah, Trevino won 6 majors.

For Nicklaus to win 18 majors and finish second 19 times is testament to the level of competition he faced.

How many repeat major winners has there been in the 10 years Tiger has competed?

Craig,

The "Nicklaus Era" extends from 1962-1986 yes? Therefore, please exclude 2 of Players majors and 4 of Palmers as they were won before the Nicklaus Era began. Oh, and I see you have snuck Trevino into the argument now, which I was expecting you to do  

In Tigers Era (1997-now) there have been 3 multiple winners, Els, Singh and Mickelson. The fact is that there have been fewer multiple winner in that short space of time bacause Tigers wins more often that Jack did, as attested to Jacks second place numbers you quoted above.

Do you now see the folly in what you said?

"Through it all, the fact is, during the Nicklaus era, pretty much every major was won by either Player, Palmer,Watson, or Nicklaus...That level of competition is amazing..You can not say that about the Woods era."

Its simply not true, not even close in fact.

[Craig Van Egmond]

Shane,

       You left poor Retief off your list of multiple winners from the 'Tiger' era.

        I happen to think that Tiger is one of the most amazing golfers ever, but I'm not convinced of the whole better competition argument. I think there are a lot more depth, but I don't think there are every many greats in any era. I didn't see Els, Singh, etc take too much advantage of the 11 majors in a row that Woods didn't win. Great players find a way to win and they win majors. Has any of them ever beaten Tiger down the stretch in a major?

       I'll take Palmer, Player, Watson, Nicklaus and Trevino against your guys anyday.  I'll also throw in Johnny Miller, Ray Floyd and Hale Irwin.

       Time will certainly tell, but right now its too soon.

       

       

[Shane Gurnett]

Craig, I'm not making a comparison of the quality of players from either era. And I agree that it is too early to call - which is why you cannot compare Jacks 24 year rein with Tigers 8 year stretch - unless I can somehow include the guys who may win multiple majors between the years 2006 and 2021.

In his first 9 years of his "era" (62-70) Nicklaus won 8 Majors and finished second 7 times. For Tiger between 97 and 2005 he won 10 Majors and finished second twice. I'd say Tiger is ahead at this stage and the next eight years, where comparitively Jack won 9 majors and finished second 8 times is going to be tough for Tiger to beat.

[Craig Van Egmond]

I got no problems with that.

Although if your comparing 8 year stretches you'd have to say Bobby Jones had a pretty darn good one.

[Shane Gurnett]

I got no problems with that.

Although if your comparing 8 year stretches you'd have to say Bobby Jones had a pretty darn good one.

Yeah, but did Bobby Jones have any real competition?  

[Rick Shefchik]

Shane -- I know you're probably being facetious, but when it came to the U.S. Amateur, Jones really didn't have much competition, except for his own tendency to squander big leads in matches he should have won easily. He tended to play down to the level of his opponents, and it caused him incredible anguish. Eventually, that -- and not the ability level of his amateur opponents -- drove him out of competive golf.

On the other hand, the Opens were a much sterner test for Jones.

[Craig Sweet]

Shane and others...I am really not into comparing eras...all I'm saying is that at one time a handful of guys won nearly all the majors and that just isn't so today. You can use any argument you want for why that is....it doesn't matter to me...what happened, happened...

Personally, I do not buy the idea that today there are so many excellent golfers that its difficult for one or two guys to dominate. I just don't buy that...Player, Palmer, Trevino, Watson...they all rose to the occasion when it mattered...they went toe to toe with one another in majors knowing that one of them would probably win because they knew the other guy would be at his best in the majors...

[Shane Gurnett]

Shane and others...all I'm saying is that at one time a handful of guys won nearly all the majors and that just isn't so today. You can use any argument you want for why that is....it doesn't matter to me...what happened, happened...

But Craig, when? The facts dont back this statement up at all?

[Jim Nugent]

Shane -- I know you're probably being facetious, but when it came to the U.S. Amateur, Jones really didn't have much competition, except for his own tendency to squander big leads in matches he should have won easily. He tended to play down to the level of his opponents, and it caused him incredible anguish. Eventually, that -- and not the ability level of his amateur opponents -- drove him out of competive golf.

On the other hand, the Opens were a much sterner test for Jones.

Why didn´t Bobby play pro golf?  If he wanted better competition, would seem like a natural.  

[A.G._Crockett]

Shane and others...I am really not into comparing eras...all I'm saying is that at one time a handful of guys won nearly all the majors and that just isn't so today. You can use any argument you want for why that is....it doesn't matter to me...what happened, happened...

Personally, I do not buy the idea that today there are so many excellent golfers that its difficult for one or two guys to dominate. I just don't buy that...Player, Palmer, Trevino, Watson...they all rose to the occasion when it mattered...they went toe to toe with one another in majors knowing that one of them would probably win because they knew the other guy would be at his best in the majors...

Craig,
The problem with this argument is that you are trying to have it both ways.  You say that you don't buy the argument of so many excellent golfers today, but then you name just 4 guys who, along with Nicklaus, were THE dominant golfers for a total of about 30 years!  I can't imagine a scenario ever again in golf where 5 guys win so much for so long; there are just too many good players now.  (Remember, I'm 53; senior tour age.)

Is it possible that the reason that only 5 guys were dominant for the better part of three decades because there was so little depth relative to today?  Again, this should not detract from the greatness of Palmer and the others, but why in the world would there have been better players from the late 50's to the late 80's when there were so many fewer professional golfers, few if any mini-Tours, less college golf, less junior golf competition, no videotaped instruction, etc., etc.  It defies logic.

Finally, remember again that Tiger's competition isn't finished either.  When Tiger is done, I'll wager that far more individuals will have won majors than in any other previous time period.

[Craig Sweet]

AG...I believe the overall level of competition was just as good from 1960-1986 as it is today...you had your first tier of golfers, your second tier (and by the way, they too won the occasional major) and you had a bunch of third tier guys.

I'm just saying that during that earlier era you had 5 or 6 guys, that when it came to majors, were head and shoulders over everyone else. You just don't have that today. Tiger rises to the occasion. Vijay, Davis Love, Els?? Hardly...and I don't see anyone from this supposedly superior PGA pool of golfers winning more than 3 or 4 majors over the next 15 years...is it because the competition is so good, or is it because no one "gets up" for the majors like Tiger and Jack???....thus..15 years from now if we look back will Tiger have 18 majors and 19 second place finishes? Will Vijay have 9 majors, Els 8, anyone else more than 3 or 4??? I doubt it.

[A.G._Crockett]

AG...I believe the overall level of competition was just as good from 1960-1986 as it is today...you had your first tier of golfers, your second tier (and by the way, they too won the occasional major) and you had a bunch of third tier guys.

I'm just saying that during that earlier era you had 5 or 6 guys, that when it came to majors, were head and shoulders over everyone else. You just don't have that today. Tiger rises to the occasion. Vijay, Davis Love, Els?? Hardly...and I don't see anyone from this supposedly superior PGA pool of golfers winning more than 3 or 4 majors over the next 15 years...is it because the competition is so good, or is it because no one "gets up" for the majors like Tiger and Jack???....thus..15 years from now if we look back will Tiger have 18 majors and 19 second place finishes? Will Vijay have 9 majors, Els 8, anyone else more than 3 or 4??? I doubt it.

We completely agree about these:

1. Tiger will NOT have 19 second place finishes.  I think the reason is that if Jack was a little off, he was still good enough to be second, and Tiger often is not.  Whether that is because Jack's B game was better than Tiger's, or because of more good players to step forward if Tiger is off, we'll never know.

2. Vijay won't have 9 majors, and Els won't have 8.  Whether or not somebody else will have more than 3 or 4 remains to be seen; there are still 15 years to go IF the Tiger era lasts as long as the Nicklaus era.  That player(s) could be in college right now.

Again, the real question is why the above are true.  You attribute it to the relative greatness of Palmer, Trevino, Player and Watson.  I consider them to be great players as well, but I can't imagine them winning as much today as they did in their own era.  

Indeed, the thing that makes Tiger so remarkable is that he IS winning in bunches in an era when the depth of the fields is so good nobody else can.  Ask yourself whether it is more likely that:

a. the quality of the TOTAL field in a major in the 60's and 70's was equal to today, given the tremendous growth of the game in the last 10-15 years

b. there are more quality players today than in any previous decade ever, due to growth in the money, college golf, junior golf, mini-Tours, etc.

Both of these can't be true, can they?  If a. is true, then we have a remarkable competitive anomaly in professional golf, when all other levels of the game are at their all-time peak.  If b. is true, then we have a really plausible explanation for both why Tiger won't finish second as often as Jack, AND why other players won't win as often as Player, et al.  I just think b. makes a lot more sense, given the state of the game.

[Jim Nugent]

AG...I believe the overall level of competition was just as good from 1960-1986 as it is today...you had your first tier of golfers, your second tier (and by the way, they too won the occasional major) and you had a bunch of third tier guys.

I'm just saying that during that earlier era you had 5 or 6 guys, that when it came to majors, were head and shoulders over everyone else. You just don't have that today. Tiger rises to the occasion. Vijay, Davis Love, Els?? Hardly...and I don't see anyone from this supposedly superior PGA pool of golfers winning more than 3 or 4 majors over the next 15 years...is it because the competition is so good, or is it because no one "gets up" for the majors like Tiger and Jack???....thus..15 years from now if we look back will Tiger have 18 majors and 19 second place finishes? Will Vijay have 9 majors, Els 8, anyone else more than 3 or 4??? I doubt it.

Craig, I just looked at some statistics that suggest you are wrong -- and that I am wrong too.  That is, Jack did NOT face stiffer competition from several players who were head and shoulders above the others.  At the same time overall competition is not tougher today, as I claimed earlier.

Here is how I arrive at this conclusion.  Tiger has played the majors for nine years as a pro.  During that time, 21 players won majors.  6 won multiple majors.  Only Tiger won more than 3.

In Jack´s first nine years as a pro (1962 thru 1970), 22 players won majors.  6 won multiples.  Only Jack won more than three during that time.

The numbers are almost identical.  Same number of players won more than one major.  Same number won 2 or 3.  One dominant  player won more -- Jack with 8 and Tiger with 10.  Over the same time period, Jack and Tiger faced virtually identical competition.  

During the 1970´s, there were a few more multiple winners.  The numbers are not dramatically different though.  The eighties were similar to the 1960s.    

Jack´s longevity throws off a lot of these comparisons.  He spanned several eras, and dominated them.  During each era, though, distributions of major winners were not much different.  

[Dan Kelly]

I suspect few really know who the real Tiger is.

I suspect few really know who the real anyone is.

I hope someone catches Tiger's dying word, and I really hope it's "Rosebud."

[A.G._Crockett]

AG...I believe the overall level of competition was just as good from 1960-1986 as it is today...you had your first tier of golfers, your second tier (and by the way, they too won the occasional major) and you had a bunch of third tier guys.

I'm just saying that during that earlier era you had 5 or 6 guys, that when it came to majors, were head and shoulders over everyone else. You just don't have that today. Tiger rises to the occasion. Vijay, Davis Love, Els?? Hardly...and I don't see anyone from this supposedly superior PGA pool of golfers winning more than 3 or 4 majors over the next 15 years...is it because the competition is so good, or is it because no one "gets up" for the majors like Tiger and Jack???....thus..15 years from now if we look back will Tiger have 18 majors and 19 second place finishes? Will Vijay have 9 majors, Els 8, anyone else more than 3 or 4??? I doubt it.

Craig, I just looked at some statistics that suggest you are wrong -- and that I am wrong too.  That is, Jack did NOT face stiffer competition from several players who were head and shoulders above the others.  At the same time overall competition is not tougher today, as I claimed earlier.

Here is how I arrive at this conclusion.  Tiger has played the majors for nine years as a pro.  During that time, 21 players won majors.  6 won multiple majors.  Only Tiger won more than 3.

In Jack´s first nine years as a pro (1962 thru 1970), 22 players won majors.  6 won multiples.  Only Jack won more than three during that time.

The numbers are almost identical.  Same number of players won more than one major.  Same number won 2 or 3.  One dominant  player won more -- Jack with 8 and Tiger with 10.  Over the same time period, Jack and Tiger faced virtually identical competition.  

During the 1970´s, there were a few more multiple winners.  The numbers are not dramatically different though.  The eighties were similar to the 1960s.    

Jack´s longevity throws off a lot of these comparisons.  He spanned several eras, and dominated them.  During each era, though, distributions of major winners were not much different.  

Great research!  Thanks for taking the time to do this; I have learned something.

[Craig Sweet]

In those 8 years...62-70...there were 32 majors and 22 players won majors...hmmm....that is indeed interesting.

[ForkaB]

I suspect few really know who the real Tiger is.

I suspect few really know who the real anyone is.

I hope someone catches Tiger's dying word, and I really hope it's "Rosebud."

I'm betting on:

"Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

Or something of that ilk.........

[johnk]

Part of the reason Tiger is so great is because he wins against the best, over and over.

Bob Harig wrote today:
"Of his 45 PGA Tour victories, 10 have come in the major championships, nine in the world events. He also has won one Players Championship, one Tour Championship and two Mercedes Championships. That is 23 titles, more than half of his victories, coming in tournaments where elite fields are assembled."

At this point in his career, he doesn't finish second as much as Jack did primarily because he wins more...

[George Pazin]

The quality of competition in virtually every sport and depth of competition in virtually every sport are always getting better (can't speak to things like cricket or rugby or Aussie rules football, but I'd bet money it's the same with them). Period. You don't go backwards over the long haul, unless you have a sport that is completely dying. I love the old guys (I'm still rooting for Watson to complete the Slam, he's my first choice every PGA, even if he's not playing ), but there is simply no way the quality of competition was better in the 50s, 70s, whatever. In general, they won more because the competition was less, not better.

All the old time nostalgia stuff is nice, but it bucks every trend in sports, even in life.

I'm probably one of the few that believe this (I think I saw Jim Nugent agree with this recently and list a convincing argument), but I think Tiger is already the best ever. He's doing it better than Jack against far deeper competition. If he gets tired of playing/dominating soon and prefers to spend the rest of his days fishing and with Elin, I'll still believe he's the best, even if he doesn't win any more majors. Jack was simply better in terms of longevity, but to me, that is one of the least important criteria (criterion?) for greatness.

[PThomas]

I still am not ready to anoint Tiger as the alltime #1...if he never wins another major, would you consider him the best ever?  I won't..

Jack's criteria for the best ever INCLUDES BUT IS NOT LIMITED TO longevity...of course, he won majors for at least 25 years - 28 if you count the Amateurs -

but he also won SIX Masters, FIVE PGAs, FOUR US Opens, THREE B Opens

of course you'd have to think Tiger will break some or all of those records, but who knows what the future holds

very few have won majors for more than a decade:  Jack and Gary Player in the last 50 years, off the top of my head

all others - Hogan, Palmer, Watson, Faldo, etc....about 10 years....

ask me in 5 or 10 years if Tiger is the best ever, I can tell you then

[Rick Shefchik]

I, too, tend to agree that the depth of talent on tour today is far greater than it has ever been. As much as I respect what Arnold Palmer has done for the game, and as fun as he was to watch, I've always felt there was a reason he won all his major championships between 1958 and 1964 -- that almost perfectly coincides with the decline of Ben Hogan and the ascendancy of Jack Nicklaus.

In Curt Sampson's new book on the 1968 Masters, he describes Bob Goalby as an outstanding football player who turned to golf when he left college and decided he didn't want to sell cars. He asked himself, realistically, how he was going to become a good enough player to beat Snead and Hogan, but he ended up winning a major championship -- tainted though some think it was -- after Snead and Hogan faded from the tour. Behind second-tier major winners like Goalby, Archer, Coody and Brewer, the pool was pretty shallow.

Now we've got kids coming onto the tour who've been breaking par on tough courses since they were 12 -- in fact, the Hooters Tour is probably full of them, and they can't break into the show. But having said that, I'll give a guy like Goalby this much: I think his background as a winner in another sport helped toughen him in a way many of today's pros never learn to get tough. Most are pampered in the AJGA system and college golf; if a few of them played college quarterback before moving on to the PGA, you might see more of them being able to stand up to Tiger down the stretch.

[George Pazin]

I still am not ready to anoint Tiger as the alltime #1...if he never wins another major, would you consider him the best ever?  I won't..

Yep.

Won 4 in a row - Jack never did that. 5 out of 6, too, in that stretch.

Masters record, both in score and margin of victory. I think Jack had only score, not sure about that, though.

U S Open record, in virtually all respects - low score, best margin of victory EVER in a major (he broke a 100 something year old record - come on, that's like breaking a record from a completely different era of sports, like the 40+ win baseball season for a pitcher or something).

Open Championship record - same year as the US, no less.

PGA Championship record (since broken) - same year as the US, no less.

He's doing everything better and ahead of Jack's pace. The only category left is longevity, which, as I said, is far and away the least meaningful to me.