The Greatest Tiger Stat that You (probably) Don't Know About

First topic message reminder :

You actually might as it comes from a June 2015 article by  Mark Broadie in Golf, "Why Tiger's Consecutive Rounds Streak Might Be Better Than Joe DiMaggio's".

http://www.golf.com/tour-and-news/tiger-woods-consecutive-rounds-streak-might-be-better-joe-dimaggios

It is worth reading the article to get the full background on this astonishing achievement, although the pointless baseball comparison seems unnecessary.

"From August 1999 through November 2000, Woods beat the field's average score in an astounding 89 consecutive PGA Tour tournament rounds".

For the period 1983 to 2015 the next best beating the field average streaks were O'Meara (33), Cink (32) and Peter Jacobsen (30).

For over a year every time Tiger teed it up in a PGAT event his score was better than the field average for that round!

By several measures we know this was probably the most dominant period by a single player in the history of the game but if we consider just how strong the field was at this time compared to others, beating it that many times in a row is astonishing. In the words of Cink "The field never has a bad day".

raycastleunited wrote:...Best baseball player in America = best in the world....

Pretty much like golf then eh?

I was using Spain as an example. There probably are a handful of public courses in spain, but to play golf in Spain, Germany and many other European countries, you first need to obtain an annual license from the national federation, to obtain this you need to pass a test to prove you know the basics and can hit a ball. You can't just rock up.

Outside Britain and Ireland, maybe Australia and US too, golf is elitist.

navyblueshorts wrote:

raycastleunited wrote:...Best baseball player in America = best in the world....

Pretty much like golf then eh?

Most MLB teams have less than half their "roster" from the USA; very likely to have multiple players from Puerto Rico, the Dominican, Cuba, Japan, S.Korea, etc, etc.

raycastleunited wrote:I was using Spain as an example. There probably are a handful of public courses in spain, but to play golf in Spain, Germany and many other European countries, you first need to obtain an annual license from the national federation, to obtain this you need to pass a test to prove you know the basics and can hit a ball. You can't just rock up.

Outside Britain and Ireland, maybe Australia and US too, golf is elitist.

This list keeps getting longer and longer.

You can add Sweden to that list.

stop finding holes in my straw man argument.


Ok, common people play golf too. Because there's nothing else to do.

Some of the most common people (and by common, I mean peasant scum) I've ever met were on the golf course.

kwinigolfer wrote:

navyblueshorts wrote:

raycastleunited wrote:...Best baseball player in America = best in the world....

Pretty much like golf then eh?

Most MLB teams have less than half their "roster" from the USA; very likely to have multiple players from Puerto Rico, the Dominican, Cuba, Japan, S.Korea, etc, etc.

Precisely.

Super

Not sure what other countries (including England) you have tried to play golf in but it can be very expensive and with many barriers to club membership.

A quarter of current MLB players are born outside the US/Puerto Rico. The most from Dom Rep, Cuba and Venezuela who make out 80% of the foreign born players. So in essence 95% of players come from 4 countries. JFGI.

As an aside ...

Hats off to those people who did not grow up with the game (playing or watching on a regular basis) and who become fans. It's really a beautiful game but it's a game you really appreciate in the particulars (less so in the general sense). The contracts these players are getting are enormous ... and it's pretty much all or nothing since there's a big drop off after the US major leagues (in terms of player pay).

As a Yankees fan I'm happy with the Stanton move, but generating offense was not an issue (last year at least) and I wonder if money could have been better spent in the bullpen?

"Money could have been better spent" paying off Cashman . . . . . . . .
Saw Stanton at CitiField last May - two line-drive HR's; he's tailor-made for the Stadium - but we still don't need him!

McLaren wrote:Super

Not sure what other countries (including England) you have tried to play golf in but it can be very expensive and with many barriers to club membership.

I forgot you were an international globetrotter with endless funds from your non professional job and a InterBus pass for Europe.

super_realist wrote:

McLaren wrote:Super

Not sure what other countries (including England) you have tried to play golf in but it can be very expensive and with many barriers to club membership.

I forgot you were an international globetrotter with endless funds from your non professional job and a InterBus pass for Europe.

Just a suggestion, but you could always answer the question?

You're always having a go at mac for being evasive.

Super

You have missed the point again, I clearly said membership can be expensive and difficult to attain in other countries, and nowhere did I mention that my funds could easily solve this problem.

So what countries have you tried to gain membership in then Mac?

raycastleunited wrote:

super_realist wrote:

McLaren wrote:Super

Not sure what other countries (including England) you have tried to play golf in but it can be very expensive and with many barriers to club membership.

I forgot you were an international globetrotter with endless funds from your non professional job and a InterBus pass for Europe.

Just a suggestion, but you could always answer the question?

You're always having a go at mac for being evasive.

It wasn't a question Ray. It was rhetorical, but for the record I've played in Norway, USA and Canada, whilst my brother in law plays in Australia, and others I know have played in UAE for reasonable prices, as it is in Spain, Turkey, Portugal etc.

I've played in Australia, Canada, USA, France, Egypt, Spain including the Canaries), Ireland and Portugal. It's always cost me a small fortune. Egypt was really pricey.
I was in Australia this year, met a few guys in Perth who were moaning about how ridiculously expensive golf is over there, pay and play and membership. In Queensland my brother in law lives on a golf estate, you can only play with a member (not uncommon over there apparently) and membership (it's an ordinary course) is 4000 bucks.

Like every sport and activity, you can pay as much as you want to pay, not always as little, but you just need to seek bargains out.

Understandable how Egypt is expensive as A)it's not a golf destination, B) expensive to maintain a course. Similar conditions to UAE, but they don't have the money or facilities to throw at it.

super_realist wrote:So what countries have you tried to gain membership in then Mac?

None outside Scotland. All I had to do was look up the entry fees to know it wasn't possible.

Which I can do as well Mac.

For every expensive course, there's one which is affordable. Just like cars, houses, bus passes etc.

I know you keeps saying that, but where is that course in the south east? There is a club near me, problem is it's in the middle of the Downs, how do I get there? I need a car...not easy for everyone. And when I say cheap it's £700 a year and is a terrible course.
Also in terms of elitism let's look at kids sport. Every kid , boys and girls gets taught to play football in school time. They have access to free clubs after school for further coaching. The park next to me has full pitches, a 5 a side court, basketball court and even a mini kids football court, all free. There are loads of clubs for kids football with low subs. You can get to them by bus or walking, kids parents don't need to be members.
We did have a kid enter a golf event from school, who did we pick, a kid whose dad is a member of a club the kid also goes to (both clearly paying for this). I doubt barely any kids are junior members of clubs unless theirs dads are also members.
So you might say golf can be cheap (I've never seen it), but it is nothing like as openly available, cheap (pretty much free) or accessible to play as football, they are not even in the same conversation.

£700 isn't bad Diggers. I used to spend about the same playing 5 a side.

I could take an iron and a bag of balls and hit them too, that would be free.

Can you really realistically compare it to football? A golf course and football pitch are so different and require completely different maintenance so of course golf courses are going to be more rare and more expensive than a 100m x 30m patch of meadow grass mown once a week, but that doesn't make golf elitist because it's not as cheap as football.

I could row for the same money I could to play football, does that mean football is as elitist as rowing?

Its a crap course, not maintained, incredibly hilly, not worth anything if it's no fun. You can row for free? We have an outward bound centre near us, it's certainly not free. I could surf canoe but I'd near to buy or hire the kit.
Is it elitist? Definitely in some ways, not in others. But it's not cheap and it's not easily accessible to kids. Aren't most junior sections dying, which suits most members who'd rather they weren't there.

Virtually everything is more expensive in that area Diggers. It's supply and demand. You have fewer golf courses and more people. It's bound to be more expensive.

So golf might not meet your expectations of cost in your particular nook of the South East, but in large parts of the rest of the country and the world, it most certainly is both affordable and accessible.

In terms of Kids, golf courses are usually very accommodating to children in terms of membership cost. One of my clubs reduced the Junior membership fee to £40 quid from £100 and extended the "youth" category to 30, which means an Open Qualifying standard course for £300. You can't call that expensive or inaccessible.

I didn't say you could row for free, but I can row for the cost of playing 5 a side. We need to get over this absurd notion that unless it's free then it's elitist or discriminatory. Virtually nothing is free in life, and we shouldn't expect things to be free, or even affordable to everyone just because you might want to do it.
I'd love to drive an Aston Martin, but I can't afford one, doesn't mean they should reduce it to my price range.

Fair enough, but I'm not talking about golf being elitist particularly, though some clubs I've been to clearly are, it is a game that varies massively from club to club, I think that's quite unusual.
What I'm trying to show, and have given evidence of, is that golf just is not a very accessible sport, certainly compared to others.
In the past 4 years I have taught about 600 kids. 4 boys played golf, no girls. Whatever word you want to use, it's not a game available to kids. Any kids that play, by and large, is because their dads (not mums) are members of a club.

McLaren wrote:

super_realist wrote:So what countries have you tried to gain membership in then Mac?

None outside Scotland. All I had to do was look up the entry fees to know it wasn't possible.

Sorry this might have been written ambiguously. So I will clear it up, I have not joined a club outside Scotland because when living outside Scotland the costs of membership and access to clubs was prohibitive. When you are only living somewhere for few years but being asked to pay very high joining fees it just doesn't make sense to sign up.



In general a club does not have to be elitist or seem all that expensive to you to make it unaffordable for most people. You live alone in a cheap part of town and therefore have a lot of disposable income. A man in your demographic would only need to stack shelves to afford some of the lower end Scottish clubs but not many people are in that situation. Most people have far more time consuming and financial responsibilities which render club membership out of the question.

You have also never had to form the connections and initiate the proceedings necessary to join a club that wasn't just the one your parents got you into when you were a junior. Basically your experience of getting golf club membership is charmed and naive.

Mac, given your paltry income and the fact you were probably a child/youth at the time, you probably couldn't have even afforded a bus pass when you "lived abroad". This by no means that golf is elitist because you personally haven't been able to afford it.  So not only couldn't you afford to join a club, you probably couldn't have afforded a great many things.

Do you really think that all people in my club have my income or above? My club is full of poor people or working class people who have much more financial outlay in life than me such as families and other time consuming factors.

Golf clubs are nothing about "what your parents got you into". I could walk into virtually any club in Scotland right now, in fact the majority of clubs in the UK and simply make an application to join. It is not subject to any background checks. Being in a golf club is not remotely a charmed existence and nor is my membership of them, just as joining a football, tennis, athletics, rowing, horse riding club, running club, badminton, trampolining isn't


What makes you think I live in a cheap area Mac?, on a good income why would I? As for stacking shelves, is that you projecting again?

Being a member of a club is not a charmed existence in general but how you specifically have become a member is. Your parents paid for you to join a club and you are now 40 something and still a member at the same club. That is a very easy path to club membership.

And as I said above, a club does not have to try and be actively elitist, like we would traditionally think of golf clubs being, to exclude a large proportion of the population from joining.

On the shelf stacking front, read the post again. I said you could stack shelves as a man in your living arrangements and still afford membership, not that you currently did. Isn't it you that bangs on about other peoples comprehension whenever the arguments gets away from you?


I have stacked shelves both at School and when at uni, who hasn't at some point? And I did not live in another country as a youth, does that change anything about the argument?

No it isn't Mac, how is putting in an application form to join a club any different from putting in a form for a passport, driving licence, gym, season ticket etc.

I am NOT a member of the same club I was as a Junior. I gave up golf when I was about 13, didn't play for at least 15 years and when I did join another club I have played at 5 separate clubs as a member, none of whom put any sort of barrier in the way to me joining. In fact one of them gave me three free rounds to let me decide if I wanted to join, on top of that most courses give the opportunity to spread the cost of a membership over direct debit and most have waived joining fees. They couldn't be much more accessible these days.

I was aware HOW you mentioned stacking shelves, I was meaning that given I'm in pretty much the same situation as you, that you are the one more closely aligned to being a shelf stacker, certainly in terms of income, and given your paltry income and your membership of a lower end golf club system in Edinburgh it's a description which suits you better.

So when and where did you live abroad Mac? We've been on these forums for a long time now since the BBC days, you've always been an Edinburgh resident as far as I can recall, given you are late twenties/30ish that means you would have been abroad around 22 years old, at best a fresh graduate age. You would have had an income which excluded you from a great many things.  I can imagine you might have done something like Camp America or something like that.

super_realist wrote:you've always been an Edinburgh resident as far as I can recall

That might be your issue right there.




Super, the point I am trying to get across to you is about how easy it is for people like us who have little family responsibilities in terms of money or time to firstly afford membership and secondly have the time to make the cost worthwhile. I am not sure you understand what committing to £500 a year, either in one lump some or over 12 months, means to some peoples finances. For example it would differ from 5 a side in that with most 5 a side football you can choose how often you play/pay and if the cash isn't around that week you don't turn up. Even a lot of media services like netflix and amazon prime can be cancelled at any point if you find that the payments become difficult. Good luck getting fees back from a club if you have to quit halfway through the year. It is also the case that joining fees still exist at many clubs.

Mac, go to any golf club in the UK and you'll find literally everyone there has more responsibility such as children and family than we do.

They might not be able to play as often as we do, but it doesn't stop them being members and in fact actually makes their membership less tenable, but they still remain members.
Are you seriously trying to tell me that golf clubs are made up of single males with a disposable income? In all the clubs I'm a member of, or have been a member of, my position as childless is very much in the minority. Furthermore, many of those with children have considerably lower incomes than me, children, lack of time and tighter finances haven't stopped them joining has it?

I'll presume that since people actively refuse to speak to you on the course and refuse your offer of a drink that you never get to find out about the people in your club.

So where did you live and when Mac, or is this like your MSc another very fishy story?

£500 is nothing Mac. It's cheaper than a lot of gyms or coffee habits. In fact, it's £1.30 a day. If you feel so strongly about that then there are many things which are out of reach, and golf is the least of your worries. Anyone who can't afford £1.30 a day has problems managing their finances.

Also, have you never heard of someone quitting a club and cancelling their DD without issue?

For starters don't use "we" to clump we in with whatever sad existence you endure.


I assume golf clubs are mostly full of people who can afford (by whatever measure) to be members. And they aren't exactly diverse.


As for where I lived, it will just have to remain a "fishy story" to you.


And a lot of people cannot afford £500 for coffee, the gym or whatever.

McLaren wrote:For starters don't use "we" to clump we in with whatever sad existence you endure.


I assume golf clubs are mostly full of people who can afford (by whatever measure) to be members.  And they aren't exactly diverse.


As for where I lived, it will just have to remain a "fishy story" to you.


And a lot of people cannot afford £500 for coffee, the gym or whatever.

First of all Mac, I'd imagine my existence is a lot more pleasant than yours.

Your assumption that clubs are "full of people who can afford" is true to an extent, but it's comparable to someone saying they can afford a few pints during the week, or a trip to the cinema, or a gym membership, or a meal out, phone contract, sky package etc. Why do you see that as unusual, or something which the majority can't have?

Why are you also so secretive about your past? Is it because it isn't true? Why can't you tell us where you have lived before? What harm can it do? It might help me understand your knowledge and give some credibility of how expensive golf is globally.

So if people can't arrange their finances to afford £500 annually for  coffee, the gym, phone contract or whatever, then it's not the duty of service providers to make it affordable for the minority who can't balance their budget. That doesn't make it inaccessible, it just means a small % of the population can't afford it, just like they might not be able to afford lots of things we consider "Luxury" items. It's not golf's, or any other service provider to provide a service for some peasant on a sink estate or 100% of the population. They aren't charities, but they are still accessible to most who want it.

Speaking of Edinburgh just wanted to say I just spent a long weekend there with the mrs. Enjoyed it a lot. 3 days of sunshine, a bit cold though. Would expect to meet mac at Princes Street, super at George Street. Quite a difference in clientele just within a short distance..

Pedro

George st is a bit new money these days, I will give you that. A bit too many native accents compared to a few years ago.

McLaren wrote:
As for where I lived, it will just have to remain a "fishy story" to you.

So you're saying that you are Austin Powers, International man of mystery.

You can try and cultivate an air of intrigue about yourself, but it just comes across as rather sad and irrelevant. Why hide, unless you are making it up?

Having been following this exchange with interest, it's obvious the two of you are speaking about golf clubs in Scotland because you'd be hard pushed to find a club, certainly anywhere in the south of England where I'm glad to have escaped from, that charges anywhere near £500 a year, even a local muni! More like £1,500 That would buy you a lot of coffee!

LP

Your point about golf being more expensive outside Scotland is one that I would like to try and get super to understand. If he could just factor in how much more expensive golf can be and how the domestic arrangements of other people can lower their disposable income the golf is affordable for most claim would hopefully be retracted.


Ray

In reality I am just never sure how much info to put out on the internet. If you really want to know about anything a little more personal drop me a PM and I will consider your request.

McLaren wrote:LP

Your point about golf being more expensive outside Scotland is one that I would like to try and get super to understand.  If he could just factor in how much more expensive golf can be and how the domestic arrangements of other people can lower their disposable income the golf is affordable for most claim would hopefully be retracted.


Ray

In reality I am just never sure how much info to put out on the internet.  If you really want to know about anything a little more personal drop me a PM and I will consider your request.

Mac, I realise that not everywhere in the world is as cheap as some places in Scotland, but let's stop this ridiculous assertion that ALL golf outside of Scotland adheres to the Surrey or South East England price structure, because it doesn't. I can simply google a ton of places in the SW, NW, NE, Midlands I can find affordable golf. If you can't be arsed to do so, it's not my problem.

Nothing is affordable to everyone, so stop expecting golf to be affordable to the sort of people who talk about sanitary towel poverty, because most things are out of their reach.

As for your puerile reasons for not putting information out on the internet. WE DON'T EVEN KNOW YOUR NAME. How could we possibly find out who you are, and what possible way could we use that information against you? I suspect that you don't because you fear you might get caught out as being as much as a charlatan as Maverick.
You claim to have lived abroad, yet couldn't have done so in anything other than a very recent post graduate, so that probably means that a "gap year" is considered "Living abroad" to you. Most people wouldn't see it that way.

So do we just forget about the 30 million people in the southern and London area?

No one mentioned that golf was the same price in the South East Diggers.
Price is all relative. Everything, houses, travel, drinks, eating out etc is more expensive in the south east. Naturally golf is going to be expensive too, but people are generally paid more.

The point is that Mac seems to think that golf needs to be available to the poorest in society for it not to be considered elitist. It's not the case. Golf might more more expensive in some parts of the south east than in some parts of Scotland, but it hardly makes it unattainable.

Or maybe he's just saying that actually it's quite an expensive sport, which is exactly my experience. As I mentioned I've played in quite a few countries, it's always been expensive. My firiends in Oz can't believe how pricey it is, and they aren't looking at flash courses.
Affordability obviously is income dependent, so all you can do is compare to other sports. Do that and it's expensive, certainly in my experience.
It's also incredibly inaccessible for kids.

Is 10 £ affordable mac? This is your chance to own your own golf course. But it’d require you move back ‘abroad’ (England)..
http://www.golfchannel.com/article/grill-room/man-raffling-mansion-golf-course-14-ticket

Diggers wrote:Or maybe he's just saying that actually it's quite an expensive sport, which is exactly my experience. As I mentioned I've played in quite a few countries, it's always been expensive. My firiends in Oz can't believe how pricey it is, and they aren't looking at flash courses.
Affordability obviously is income dependent, so all you can do is compare to other sports. Do that and it's expensive, certainly in my experience.
It's also incredibly inaccessible for kids.

It is more expensive that something more simplistic like football or badminton, but why would anyone expect it to be as cheap as something like football or badminton? It's more expensive than a cheese sandwich too, but it's not really a decent comparison is it, so neither is sunday league football or going for a 10k run.


It's not more expensive than being a football fan though, so where people say things like their main weekend interest is football (a.k.a. supporting their team and having a season ticket), that in many cases will cost a lot more than people who claim their main interest is golf.

It's a perfectly good comparison because you can only compare the cost (and accessibility) of golf to other mainstream sports. It's more expensive and less accessible than those sports.
Comparing playing to watching on the other hand, is not a good comparison.
If you want to talk about watching costs, there is a lot more football I can watch free to air than golf.

And we haven't mentioned the cost of practice, there's isn't a field around here you can take a bag of balls to, not allowed in parks, quite rightly.
Only range near me, that is a 10 minute drive so no good for kids on their own) £4.50 for 50 balls. As a standard player you have to do some range practice. There is your 5 a side cost (and more, mine is £2) right there.

LadyPutt wrote:Having been following this exchange with interest, it's obvious the two of you are speaking about golf clubs in Scotland because you'd be hard pushed to find a club, certainly anywhere in the south of England where I'm glad to have escaped from, that charges anywhere near £500 a year, even a local muni! More like £1,500 That would buy you a lot of coffee!

£54 a month for full access to an 18 and a 9. It’s a muni now run by a private operator. Price also includes access to gym in the clubhouse. Membership of the attached club is £85 per year. Having said that Lady putt I fully accept that we are most definitely the exception to the rule in southern England

Super 

Is it possible that a lot of sports including golf are expensive? 

For many people with tight financial constraints playing or watching sports might not be possible.

Mac, you're probably right. But no one with tight financial constraints have a problem finding 2K a year for fags. So at the end of the day there's an element of prioritization in it as well.