Jim
No that's not the comparison. It's not supposed to be mini-tour player vs. Gary Player! That's like saying the gap between the worst of the best today and the best of the best yesterday has increased.
No, what I am trying to get at is that the worst of the best today is better than the worst of the best yesterday, but that the agent of that change also makes the best of the best today (ex-Tiger) worse than the best of the best yesterday (ex-Jack). The distribution on both ends of the high-end of golf has narrowed: the differences between the worst of the best and the best of the best, past vs. present.
Unnatural Selection -- hilarious for me to have called it a "theory" when it's really at this point a hypothesis, although possibly the most-brilliant hypothesis on this subject since, well, Darwin on Berwick golfers...but no I insist, please hold off the accolades for now! -- the idea of Unnatural Selection is that the change in how players learn the game and progress in their ability to play the game (it's more than checking off a list of "skills" to acquire!) has made the worst less worse and produced the unintended consequence of the potentially great becoming only good.
In the past, the worst of the best would have been selected out by competition. This learning process -- think of it as in the real Natural Selection theory as there being wide variation in paths to greatness -- produced some relative stinkers (again, we're just talking about the high end) but was necessary somehow to producing a few diamonds: Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, Jack Nicklaus, etc.
Today, some who would have gotten selected out by competition are:
1) prevented from that fate before they get to it via the Conveyor Belt process of learning; and / or
2) allowed to "survive" due to the existence of many more professional tours, which enables them to stay on the Conveyor Belt longer (call this section the Pelz-Leadbetter Belt), making them even "more good" and ultimately strengthening the fields at a major.
The flip side of Unnatural Selection is it strips out the potential greatness by reducing learning to agreed-upon fundamentals plus by running increasing numbers of top-tier golfers through Conveyor Belts such as the US university golf system, national junior programs like those in Sweden and Australia, etc.
Jeff, your post reminds me of two anecdotes that may shed a little light:
A. Harvey Penick's advice to his players to beware the opponent with a bad grip and a bad swing. These players will have grooved their action, and then he goes on to say such a player would not have made it to that level had he not succeeded.
B. Dave Pelz said his study of the short game (and perhaps here is a good place to add the Pelz Short-Game Conveyor Belt to the list above) began when he followed two Tour pros during a tournament, charting their every shot and result. He paid particular attention to one who had a beautiful swing, great rhythm, etc. -- and was astonished to learn only after the round was completed that the player with a bad swing and unremarkable game had beat those fancy pants right off Pretty Boy.
It's just a hypothesis, but it's good to see Jeff didn't get completely sick when he ate it -- at least until you so helpfully pointed out what he had just eaten -- and now it's more than half-baked!
That said, Jim, I think you do hit on the soft underbelly of Unnatural Selection when you point to the size of the game as the reason. The increase in money could provide an explanation distinct from Unnatural Selection for why we don't see as much in the tails of the distribution at the high end, as I mentioned in the earlier post.
A second point you seem to make I'm not sure I agree with: "Great players are born with the determination to refuse failure."
Let's accept the statement as true. Given the majors as the standard, the conclusion is fewer great players exist today. Then doesn't that mean today's lack of greatness is just a fluke of randomness, of birthrates 20-30 years ago? If so, I don't buy that. I think nurture explains it better than nature, and in this case "nurture" means Unnatural Selection -- aka the Bob Rotella Conveyor Belt!
Mark
PS I agree it's a horribly-flawed analysis to see who might have won without Jack / Tiger in the field -- except in 2000, when Els nearly won the Grand Slam in the "human being" division!