PGA Tour: The Players: Notes from the Ballwasher

First topic message reminder :

1).Well done to Tyrrell Hatton, great win at Bay Hill which continued the run of non-American winners - Day, Leishman, McIlroy, Molinari, Hatton.
This was also an Open Championship qualifier and Keith Mitchell (for the second year running), Danny Lee and Dahmen get to battle the traffic at Royal St.George's in July.

2).For the second week running, the course set-up seemed to make scoring unnecessarily tricky given the prevailing weather conditions. A war of attrition, but not necessarily the most attractive golf for the TV viewer to enjoy.
Hopefully the set-up at TPC Sawgrass will enable the world's best to play their shots.

3).Scott Piercy made news for all the wrong reasons last week and now Tour Commish Monahan has expressed disappointment "in the lack of judgment used" and "that it has been addressed with Scott directly". Good thing Monahan didn't say "he knows better" because Piercy clearly doesn't. But his sponsors do, thankfully, tho' any Tour punishment will be kept unpublished - unless he starts missing tournaments, from which we might draw our own conclusions.
Personally, I'd like to have seen his "invitation" to Bay Hill revoked, but no such disapproval reported from the API.

4).Interesting graph from princedrac's twitter account this week showing the top ten owgr points-getters at The Players:
Four Americans: Woods, DLIII, Furyk, Couples
Three Aussies: Elk, Scott, Shark
Nick Price
Sergio & Langer
A good week, of which there haven't been many recently, will see Garcia can jump from 2nd to 1st, ahead of Tiger.

5).That's reflective of an international honours board with eight of the last twelve winners being "overseas" players.
And first-timers at TPC have a tough time too - after Jerry Pate won on the course's debut in 1982, only Hal Sutton and Craig Perks have won trophy on their first trip. Leading "rookie" last year was Eddie Pepperell who stormed home in 3rd place - but he's busy trying to figure out how you get dq'd three times in less than 2 years.

6).This week looks like the exact halfway point of the pre-Play-Off PGA Tour season, the 23rd event out of a total of 46. About 50 pros have already won enough FedEx Points to assure them a tee-time at the Northern Trust, Round 1 of the FedEx Cup Play-Offs.
Not many are Europeans: McIlroy, Hatton, Rahm, Hovland.

7).And only Fleetwood among other Europeans is comfortably placed, for now.
Those who have struggled this season so far, but are exempt at least through next year, include McDowell (79th), Casey (93rd), Lowry (140th), Molinari (168th), Donald (assuming he takes another earnings exemption - 172nd), Garcia (179th), Willett (181st), Stenson (197th), Wallace (202nd), Rose (205th),
While this lot, all not yet exempt for 2020/21 have it all to do: Straka (82nd), Norlander (84th), Knox (90th), Fitzpatrick (100th), Noren (107th), Rafa C-B (120th), Poulter (128th), Cappelen (130th), Laird (158th), Ventura (175th), Power (201st), Bjerregard (224th), Lewis (227th), plus 3 or 4 others on more tenuous status.

8).But one or two American "faces" are also struggling, with these three less than half-way to a Play-Off goal about 400 pts:
110th: Spieth
111th: D.Johnson
213th: Koepka

9).The Florida "Swing" has a musical chairs of dates next year, starting with Bay Hill, then The Players, followed by "Honda". No word yet on how Valspar fits in, but hopefully retains its fourth slot in Florida.

10).Finally, the Top 64 in the owgr's after The Players will qualify for the WGC-MatchPlay in Austin in a fortnight's time.

Any Valspar Notes will be added here next week.

Can someone please supply me the worldwide TV ratings and popularity among 18-21 year old females with red shirts for the sport of Dwarf Tossing?

Thanks... waiting with baited breath...

"bitter Pensioner"

When debate is lost, slander is the tool of the loser.

PokerAtlas (your source) said Cricket has 2.5 Billion fans. Not mine.

I just put a pencil to the numbers. Some one is cooking the books.

GPB wrote:"bitter Pensioner"

When debate is lost, slander is the tool of the loser.

PokerAtlas (your source) said Cricket has 2.5 Billion fans. Not mine.

I just put a pencil to the numbers.  Some one is cooking the books.

Jesus ( or gee if you prefer) how many times? Slander is spoken and refers to damaging your reputation. You cannot slander (or libel) someone who is anonymous. Add a dictionary to your need for an Atlas. At best you could describe it as an ad hominem but it barely qualifies as that.

There are many sources that have over 2 billion Cricket fans cited. Sorry you can't accept that there are sports much more popular than American sports.

Whether or not one agrees with him, Adam Scott is usually worth listening to, and his observations here in this golfchannel.com piece are especially apropos:

https://www.golfchannel.com/news/adam-scott-skeptical-pga-tours-coronavirus-health-and-safety-plan

I hadn't caught the "one- or two-hour test results" feature - will the Tour have a lab on site, or in the designated hotel, or both?
Otherwise they'll be relying on the Abbott Labs test, I would think, which has been proven to throw up something close to 40% errant result. (Assume this is also what the WH uses which may account for their incidences recorded recently.)

On the recent McKeller podcast with McIlroy he had an interesting response when asked who was the greatest ever.  He responded not by picking a GOAT but he said the greatest golf ever played was by Tiger woods.

I just wondered if that is something we could get agreement with on here, even if you think Hogan or Nicklaus are the GOATS.

I think what Rory meant was that Tiger has had spells during his career (00-01, 05-07) where he reached a level no one else has ever reached, and even if you don't rate his career as the best overall these spells were the pinnacle of form anyone has ever reached. Anyway, what do you think?

YES!
Good way of looking at it, Rory.

Pebble Beach in 2000 was probably as perfect as anyone ever played at that level. A few others fall into the same category.

McLaren wrote:On the recent McKeller podcast with McIlroy he had an interesting response when asked who was the greatest ever.  He responded not by picking a GOAT but he said the greatest golf ever played was by Tiger woods.

I just wondered if that is something we could get agreement with on here, even if you think Hogan or Nicklaus are the GOATS.

I think what Rory meant was that Tiger has had spells during his career (00-01, 05-07) where he reached a level no one else has ever reached, and even if you don't rate his career as the best overall these spells were the pinnacle of form anyone has ever reached. Anyway, what do you think?

I'd rather have watched Seve or Mickelson play golf. Botox never looks like he's enjoying himself.

All opinion of course, but I've always thought Tiger was the best golfer I've ever seen and Nicklaus the most accomplished.

Kwini

I really thought it was a good way of looking at it. I have had to change my opinion on Rory quite a bit over the last few years because he has become one of the few top athletes that are thoughtful and have interesting things to say. In stark contrast to the man who played the best golf ever.

What I also find interesting is that it isn't an accident that Rory has become more interesting to listen to because he also opened up about becoming a more curious person and taking the time to read and learn just for the fun of it. For a guy that missed out on most of his education that is highly commendable in my opinion. He could just practice and then go do meaningless stuff but he has made the effort to become a more rounded individual. That must be quite unique in the world of top sportspeople.

Super

seve had a great short game but he is clearly not in the top echelon of Woods, Hogan and Nicklaus.

In fact is seve even in the second tier of Sarazon, Hagan, Jones, Snead, player?

I see seve in the 3rd tier with Faldo, Mickelson, Watson, Palmer, Trevino and Nelson.

I couldn't give the slightest toss about Sarazen, Hogan, Snead, Nelson etc. They played a different game to modern golf.

I don't think we constantly hark back to Di Stefano, Puskis, Matthews, Eusabio when talking about football so why do it with golf? Do you think when people were in the 1930's etc they were comparing Snead to old Tom?

I said I'd rather watch Seven and Mickelson rather than some fat oaf in plus fours from a time when I didn't even exist.

Yup, best players to follow is a whole different category!

Mac,
I think Rory's wife also has a lot to bring to the party; don't know much about her, but wouldn't be surprised if she's a very positive influence in many different ways. Probably a lot different from most Tour WAGS.

I just can't buy that a player who's career started roughly 60 years ago and had "only" 73 wins and "only" 18 majors could possibly be considered having a "more accomplished career" than someone of this era with 82/15.  Jack played in an era on the PGA Tour where all but a small mittful of international players were effectively locked out, and in an era when the size of the "competitive" talent pool he was competing against was probably well below 1/3rd or even 1/4 of what it is today.   Back then, the best players were were supposed to win 50 or more... today that's more like 30.  IMO Jack would have had to have at least 95-100-ish total wins with north of 20+ majors be comparable to 82/15.  

I know this sounds like "Tiger slurping".... but IMO it's just the nature of sports...  You exponentially increase the size of the talent pool, develop them better and then create a pathway for a worldwide talent pool to actually have access to the same tour where before they didn't... and the number of quality players dramatically increases... More depth = more competitive players a winner has to beat + more players who can win themselves = HARDER to win.   

And it's HARDER to win now than it was 20 years ago...

I hear you Robo. I seem to recall that it was you who did the analysis the Open Championship had far weaker fields in Jack's day than it did in Tiger's. But no denying Jack has (and will almost certainly finish with) more majors than Tiger. For what that's worth.

Again, IMO, Tiger is the best professional golfer to ever play the game.

Shotrock wrote:I hear you Robo. I seem to recall that it was you who did the analysis the Open Championship had far weaker fields in Jack's day than it did in Tiger's. But no denying Jack has (and will almost certainly finish with) more majors than Tiger. For what that's worth.

Again, IMO, Tiger is the best professional golfer to ever play the game.

I'm sure I did some for the Open... but the truth of the matter is ALL the majors before the 80's had far weaker fields than say mid 1990's on. On one hand you had a lot of the best Americans not playing the Open, but you had few of the best Internationals playing the Majors in the USA.

In fact if you go as late as 1980 and look at the fields of Jack's PGA and U.S. Open wins...
• there were only 7 international players the PGA... (3 AUS, 1 Eur, 1 JPN, 1 MEX, 1 SAF)
• 8 in the US Open. (2 AUS, 2 EUR, 1 JPN, 1 SAF, 1 TWN + one more that I know i'm missing, Canadian I think it was)

Jack didn't win these... but in the other 2 majors...
• 9 in the Masters (3 AUS, 3 EUR, 2 JPN and 1 SAF)
• The 1980 British Open was doing much better getting Americans by 1980... it had 30+ legitimate American Tour pro's, including most of the best.

But again... by 1980 depths of fields were growing FAST, but you were still looking at probably less than 1/2 the quality talent pool of 2000 having access to the PGAT... Total world courses were up to about 20k from abt 10k in 1960... but you didn't have near the depth in worldwide instruction or developmental tours, not even in the US. By 2000 there were about 30k courses world wide, but the most important thing was International players were gaining REAL access to the PGA Tour. That access picked up even more steam with the birth of the WGC's in 1999 which allowed more of the worlds best to get on the PGAT via Special Temporary Membership.

As for the Tour membership... back in 1976 there were only 8 International players on the PGAT who played 15 or more events on Tour... only 5 of them 20 or more. By 2006 that number was up to 60 International players making 15+ starts, with 41 of them making 20+ starts.

As of 2019 R&A Report... there's about 38k courses worldwide...

If Nicklaus cannot be the GOAT because he started his career 60 years ago, then there can never be a GOAT. As in Greatest of ALL TIME.

Because inevitably, there is going to be someone, lets call him Schlomo Mohammed Chang, that will be better, and faced more global competition.

And perhaps there will be a Vulcan/Klingon/Human cross species that will face competition from the Galaxy who will rise above the rest.

In 2009, a rival of Nicklaus was in a playoff for the Open Championship 2 months away from his 60th birthday.

Just the year, another (quasi) Nicklaus rival nearly won the Open Championship at age 54 while only playing a handful of tournaments in the YEARS leading up to the 2008 Open

GPB wrote:If Nicklaus cannot be the GOAT because he started his career 60 years ago, then there can never be a GOAT.  As in Greatest of ALL TIME.

Because inevitably, there is going to be someone, lets call him Schlomo Mohammed Chang, that will be better, and faced more global competition.

And perhaps there will be a Vulcan/Klingon/Human cross species that will face competition from the Galaxy who will rise above the rest.

That's simply not true... but the further back you go (as depth of fields and competition was less and less), the players have to do MORE than the players of the next generation.

IMO this is the graphic that best illustrates Tiger's dominance over the most prolific PGA Tour winners in history...  It took Jack 469 events to get to his 73rd win (Green line). Tiger got to #73 in 269 events (red line)... that's 200 events faster. TWO HUNDRED !!!! Are you kidding me?  Against far deeper WORLD fields?

And people think because Jack got 3 more majors (and a butt-load of 2nds) when pro golf wasn't nearly as developed as today, he had a better career than Tiger? The logic just does NOT compute.
 

Thanks Robo ... great research.

Does anyone think Tiger will play much on Sr. circuit when he's of age? I can't imagine he will beyond a few events that lead into majors. Just a hunch.

I know it may sound like I'm name dropping here, but I was hitting balls earlier today and Gary Player was 2 stations over. We (a few of us) chatted it up and he asked us if WE thought Tiger would win another major. Most of us said no (I shrugged). Gary said he would "not be surprised at all if Tiger won another". Gary said his drive to win is too strong to count him out.

GPB wrote:In 2009, a rival of Nicklaus was in a playoff for the Open Championship 2 months away from his 60th birthday.

Just the year, another (quasi) Nicklaus rival nearly won the Open Championship at age 54 while only playing a handful of tournaments in the YEARS leading up to the 2008 Open

So what? A 62 year-old Sam Snead finished T3 two shots behind Jack and 3 behind Trevino in the 1974 PGA. What does that prove? Jacks generation sucked? Of course not.  What Sam,Tom & Greg proved was some guys are able to maintain a high level of play for a long time (and find occasional lightning in a bottle for a near miss)

In the Open Championship, from 1963 through 1980 (18 Championships) Jack Nicklaus averaged a 3rd place finish. Only once finishing out of the Top 10.

He was beaten over 72 holes only 39 times by 26 different players

Of those 72 rounds, he beat the field average score 70 times.

Less than 10 players beat Nicklaus on any given day.

I guess he just got lucky getting on the good side of the draw in those 18 year s

robopz wrote:
So what? A 62 year-old Sam Snead finished T3 two shots behind Jack and 3 behind Trevino in the 1974 PGA. What does that prove? Jacks generation sucked? Of course not.  What Sam,Tom & Greg proved was some guys are able to maintain a high level of play for a long time (and find occasional lightning in a bottle for a near miss)

I am not denigrating the Snead era because it happened before the Nicklaus era.

Good stuff robo . . . . . . .

Clearly Nicklaus was first to 18 Majors, but you make a compelling point regarding Woods vs Snead!!

GPB wrote:

robopz wrote:
So what? A 62 year-old Sam Snead finished T3 two shots behind Jack and 3 behind Trevino in the 1974 PGA. What does that prove? Jacks generation sucked? Of course not.  What Sam,Tom & Greg proved was some guys are able to maintain a high level of play for a long time (and find occasional lightning in a bottle for a near miss)

I am not denigrating the Snead era because it happened before the Nicklaus era.

Great.... if you weren't so defensive about it you would be able to understand I'm not either.  It's just the golf has matured thru the eras, that's all.   Simply a matter of more quality players with each passing era. And the more quality players you have the less wins each they generally have.... 50÷5=10... 50÷10=5... That's all it is... As this chart well illustrates...

Let’s not forget TW has an additional 10+ W’s, on top of his 82 on the PGAT. Not sure how many Jack had?

Anyway, as we are comparing players from different eras it’ll always have a degree of subjectivity.

pedro wrote:Let’s not forget TW has an additional 10+ W’s, on top of his 82 on the PGAT. Not sure how many Jack had?

Anyway, as we are comparing players from different eras it’ll always have a degree of subjectivity.

Here was an attempt to list all the significant wins for Snead, Tiger & Jack.  Trying to level the playing field a bit ( & not eliminate too many of Snead's wins) this compilation uses a minimum of 10 players or teams in a field. 

And please... I'm not putting this up as a suggestion the way I've listed them here and the criteria I've used should be the only way anyone should look at it.... I'm just trying to equalize a criteria for all, and at the same time bring to light a lot of other good events all three players won in their careers.

GPB wrote:In the Open Championship, from 1963 through 1980 (18 Championships) Jack Nicklaus averaged a 3rd place finish. Only once finishing out of the Top 10.

He was beaten over 72 holes only 39 times by 26 different players

Of those 72 rounds, he beat the field average score 70 times.

Less than 10 players beat Nicklaus on any given day.

I guess he just got lucky getting on the good side of the draw in those 18 year s

And with all those tremendous stats he still managed to win only 3 Opens when it reads like he should have won 6-7 maybe. And he needed a 72nd hole gift from Doug Sanders for one of those 3... Go figure.

Shotrock wrote:Thanks Robo ... great research.

Does anyone think Tiger will play much on Sr. circuit when he's of age? I can't imagine he will beyond a few events that lead into majors. Just a hunch.

I know it may sound like I'm name dropping here, but I was hitting balls earlier today and Gary Player was 2 stations over. We (a few of us) chatted it up and he asked us if WE thought Tiger would win another major. Most of us said no (I shrugged). Gary said he would "not be surprised at all if Tiger won another". Gary said his drive to win is too strong to count him out.

My guess is no senior events for TW.   10 years ago I would have said absolutely not, but now I wouldn't be shocked if he played a couple here or there. (Depending on his back situation of course).

Pretty cool meeting Gary.   I met him at a golf course owner's association meeting at Mission Hills once back in the 90's.  Super nice guy, but pretty full of himself too. But in fairness he was there to hawk his golf course design business, so selling himself was part of the deal I guess.

Thanks for the info Robo. I really appreciate the work you put into those types of posts.



For those people who think Jack is the GOAT what arguments would you put forward to convince a Tiger fanboy like myself that Jack is indeed the GOAT?

I assume it isn't the 18 vs 15 majors comparison, so what is it?

Why not Mac? It's all a matter of opinion despite what you and Robo demonstrate with statistics. I personally think Jack is the GOAT because of the higher number of Majors. But also I cannot separate Tiger's off course activities from the golfer. He is 'tarnished' (for want of a better word) .

The thing about the 18 majors is that Tiger could limp on and get to 18 or more and I don't think it would change or add to the reason he is the best player ever. Tiger is the best player ever because of how he played the game from 1997 to 2009.

In your opinion Mac.

McLaren wrote:Thanks for the info Robo. I really appreciate the work you put into those types of posts.

For those people who think Jack is the GOAT what arguments would you put forward to convince a Tiger fanboy like myself that Jack is indeed the GOAT?

I assume it isn't the 18 vs 15 majors comparison, so what is it?

Thanks Mac... Your questions are the type I like best.  and I want to be clear I don't begrudge anyone who believes Jack is the GOAT. From what little the vast majority of people know about the nature of golf and the way it's matured thru the eras, and the way THEY (players and media) thought about it thru the eras,  it's a completely legitimate point of view. So anyone who subscribes to that 18>15 and all those 2nd places yada, yada, yada... I can't begrudge them that opinion.

But just because I don't begrudge them their Jack is the best opinion... that doesn't mean I agree.

There's a REASON I don't subscribe to comparing 18 events for Jack and 15 for Tiger and saying, "THAT'S it, I don't need any more" (even if Tiger has seemed to fall for that at times, which he's kinda backing off of more recently). IMO a lot of it is because there's a tremendous OVER importance attached to majors today compared to what it used to be.

Edit: for those of you who aren't interested in the research I've done on this topic you can stop with the last paragraph above and forego my long windedness below  :

I use as a prime example the 1989 book published by the PGA Tour "History of the PGA Tour".  In that process the Tour put together several committees to clean up the records. It was a helluva process until it got a bit rushed at the end and some mistakes were made and some politics entered into it, but that's another story.  But what IS important is in that book they put together an ALL TIME ranking of players thru 1988.  They used three points based compilations to do those rankings.  And despite Jack having finished winning... Sam Snead came out on top on all three.  2 of the rankings valued majors as the same points as other events, but a third rated the majors between 1.7 to 2.0 x regular events.  (And even adding in all the UNOFFICIAL at the time Opens to both players and events for Jack after 1988, Sam still comes out on top of all 3).

Now I've NEVER been one to subscribe to straight points based compilations to compare careers. I think they can work pretty well to do a current OWGR or something (using varying field strengths and divisors for all events), but differences in golf over the eras make doing similar impossible in my view. Trust me, I've tried :-).    But the point is THEY believed in it back then.  At that time Sam Snead was credited with 6 majors and Jack 15 (no British Opens), yet in the preamble to those rankings... Joseph Dey (1st official PGAT Commissioner) makes the case for the committees that longevity and totals should be the most important thing. But he also made the case that overall winning %'s could be valid as well. At that point Jack was at 17.9% and Sam at 15.67%. But Jack would eventually fall several points behind Sam over his entire career.  

And there is current verification to the way they thought back then... Last year when Tiger got to 81 with his Masters win, Laury Livsey (PGA Tour Historian) wrote a GREAT article "How we got to 82"... detailing some of the process of how the Tour determined which events to make official and which not (linked below). For reference the committee that decided what was official or not was made up of Al Barkow Author, Journalist; Joe Black, past president of the PGA of America; Joe Dey, the first TOUR Commissioner; former TOUR player Jay Hebert; Jack Tuthill, a retired TOUR Tournament Director; and Herbert Warren Wind, a noted golf writer, mainly for The New Yorker. Representing the TOUR were TOUR employees Gary Becka, Cliff Holtzclaw and Steve Rankin.).

In that article Livsey discusses how disappointed Sam always was because he thought wins were taken away from him. He thought he should have 89 in stead of the 81 he was credited with at that time (before the 1 for his British was added).  Livsey verifies how they viewed those rankings by saying although Sam lost some wins, he was ranked in that book as "THE BEST PLAYER".  "The TOUR determined that in three different, meaningful statistical categories that took into consideration 1) the Ryder Cup points system used in the 1980s, 2) tournament performance based on the percent of a tournament’s total purse, and 3) a lifetime points-based system constructed to reflect career top-25 finishes, Snead came out on top in all three metrics.

Translation: He [SAM] was the TOUR’s best player."  (these were the rankings I mentioned above)

Now I bring all this Snead stuff back into it, not to reignite the Snead records debate... but to illustrate how they viewed majors back then. The thought of ranking somebody with 6 majors over a player with 15 today is preposterous...  But back then... that's exactly what they did.


So I ask... WHY should I in a comparison of Tiger to Jack,  give Jack's 18 majors WAY more importance than they gave them back when he won them? I don't.  I DO think majors are THE MOST IMPORTANT thing... but I simply don't believe they are the be all end all that people make them out to be today. I just don't see how anyone can rank Jack over Tiger which requires them to ignore or significantly de-emphasize so many other measures.  

But still... I won't begrudge the "Jack crowd".  If some just don't care to know (or totally discount) the nature of both the 18 and the 15 and the differences in golf thru the generations (which makes it harder and harder to win with each generation)... or can't get over Tiger's "issues", and somehow think Tiger was a worse player because of them... Oh well... not much I can do about that.  

How We Got To 82 - https://www.pgatour.com/tiger-woods-chasing-82-wins-record-sam-snead-history/tiger-woods-sam-snead-chasing-82-pga-tour-wins-record-history-how-we-got-here.html

Thanks again robo :OK:

Yeh, I have heard it mentioned by people who have covered the game for a long time that the hype around a major and how much you can extrapolate about a player from winning one has changed over the years. That said, I assume a major was always he accomplishment most prized by a player of any era?

Having just conceded above that the majors possibly play too large a role in defining a players career I accept the argument that PGAT wins are an important marker (especially if you consider the average strength of field beaten over a long period), but do 9 more wins on the PGAT (many of dubious stature) close the gap of 11 majors between Snead and Jack. That feels iffy to me, but if you were a purely accomplishment guy (I liked Shotrocks distinction between best golfer and most accomplished player) would 9 PGAT wins close the gap of 3 majors between Tiger and Jack? (especially if you consider the number of Tigers regular wins that will have had higher SOF than majors jack won).

Anyway, as far as I can see with every post robo makes on the matter it becomes harder for me to be convinced that Jack is the GOAT, and so far the only argument made to persuade me was the 18 vs 15 one. Come on Jack fans you can do better.

Why does anyone actually care who is the best?

McLaren wrote:Thanks again robo  

Yeh, I have heard it mentioned by people who have covered the game for a long time that the hype around a major and how much you can extrapolate about a player from winning one has changed over the years. That said, I assume a major was always he accomplishment most prized by a player of any era?

Absolutely Mac... Majors (even though "major" was often used as an adjective than the noun that it is today) have always held the MOST importance. But depending on how far back you go, it becomes a fraction of the importance today...


1) First, until 1960 and Palmer introducing the concept of a "Grand Slam" made up of the Masters, PGA and US and British Opens, there wasn't even a consensus of what the majors were... or how many there were. The Western Open was clearly viewed as a major to many prior to 1960, even moreso prior to WW2. (Think of Hogan posing with his 3 majors trophies as of 1948 which included the Western. posted below) and Prior to WW2, the North and South and Metropolitan Open were often cited as the most important events of the day. And players like Nelson mentioned events like Los Angeles and the mega-rich Tam O'Shanter as majors (Tam known as the World Series with a purse that dwarfed everything else by miles for a few years there).

2) But what I was surprised to learn... was over here at least... the U.S. Open was viewed miles above any of the current other 3 majors. I've been in regular contact with Al Barkow, the author of that 1989 History of the PGA Tour Book and of course he was on it's most important committees. He also wrote one of the most authoritative biographies of Sam Snead: "SAM". I asked him point blank... "Back in 1989 did you view Sam as a better player than Jack?". He hedged... but NOT for the reason I expected. I thought he would point out the difference in Jack and Sam's major totals. But his big issue with Sam's record was he never won a U.S. Open. But it wasn't because that prevented Sam from having a "career grand slam", it was just to him the U.S. Open was just so much more important of all the majors to American players back then, that hole in Sam's resume was hard to overcome. Now to be accurate, he didn't say he would have anointed Jack over Sam back then either.

Below: Ben Hogan with the U.S. Open, PGA Championship and Western Open trophies:

Everyone knows its the Hall of Fame that counts and not Majors.

super_realist wrote:Why does anyone actually care who is the best?

Agreed and given that it is entirely subjective, why would anyone care who anyone else thought was the best?

superflyweight wrote:

super_realist wrote:Why does anyone actually care who is the best?

Agreed and given that it is entirely subjective, why would anyone care who anyone else thought was the best?  

Why do superflyweights fight?
And why ever would anyone watch them?? Or any sport???

superflyweight wrote:

super_realist wrote:Why does anyone actually care who is the best?

Agreed and given that it is entirely subjective, why would anyone care who anyone else thought was the best?  

On my short list of dumb questions I've never ever, even once thought to ask:  "Why are people interested in things I'm not interested in?".

Maybe I used the wrong word in "care".

Maybe I should have said "why do people passive aggresively request a subjective opinion from someone so they can tear that opinion apart using a fairly meaningless set of statistics which have been formulated based on an abitrary start date and subjective criteria?".

Is that any better?

superflyweight wrote:Maybe I used the wrong word in "care".  

Maybe I should have said "why do people passive aggresively request a subjective opinion from someone so they can tear that opinion apart using a fairly meaningless set of statistics which have been formulated based on an abitrary start date and subjective criteria?".  

Is that any better?  

Yeah. That's better.  My answer would be "I dunno". But if you think somebody is doing that maybe you should ask them directly instead of asking me or as a general question to the board.

I care because I have never heard an argument for Jack being better than Tiger other than the 18 vs 15 majors.

I know for example Kwini is a proponent of the Jack better than Tiger, but even now when I show an interest in why that is the case even Kwini won't say anything. I would genuinely like to hear the best arguments for Jack being the GOAT.


If you Include Tigers amateur career, the golf he put together from 91 (first US Jr Am) through to 09 was the most spectacular display ever seen. It would be mind blowing to think someone was better than that.

Wasn't he injured from mid 2008 for about 2 years Mac?

He might well be the best, but he's still an absolute walloper.

Super he was inured from after US open 08 until early 09. Then won 6 times on the PGAT in 09. Still one of the better PGAT seasons of all time.

McLaren wrote:Super he was inured from after US open 08 until early 09. Then won 6 times on the PGAT in 09. Still one of the better PGAT seasons of all time.

Do you think all of his injuries have been "injuries" or was there a cover up?

He was definitely inured (Torn ACL and two stress fractures to his tib or fib). What remains unclear is what "medication" he was given by the Canadian doctor. At best he was given platelet replacement therapy, where your own blood is taken, spun into component parts and the platelets injected back into the inured area. I think the issue is whether this guy was adding human growth hormone into the platelet mix. The doc that administered the treatment went down for something so a lot of the info is in the public domain. As yet there is no confirmation Tiger took PED's as part of his treatment. One of his doctors signed, I think, an affidavit (or other court document) saying Tiger didn't take PEDs. All pretty dodgy and unlikely to be evidence based medicine. At best he got conned into using a quack.

Anyway, let's not get distracted. Could some Jack fans please outline his case for GOAT? It would be much appreciated.

McLaren wrote:He was definitely inured (Torn ACL and two stress fractures to his tib or fib). What remains unclear is what "medication" he was given by the Canadian doctor. At best he was given platelet replacement therapy, where your own blood is taken, spun into component parts and the platelets injected back into the inured area. I think the issue is whether this guy was adding human growth hormone into the platelet mix. The doc that administered the treatment went down for something so a lot of the info is in the public domain. As yet there is no confirmation Tiger took PED's as part of his treatment. One of his doctors signed, I think, an affidavit (or other court document) saying Tiger didn't take PEDs. All pretty dodgy and unlikely to be evidence based medicine. At best he got conned into using a quack.

He's never proven himself to be very bright so highly likely he was conned.

I've never seen anything more than supposition re Tiger being injected with anything during that 2008 knee injury period. But I can't entirely discount the possibility either. 

But if he was, I very much doubt it was the blood spinning Dr. Galea who did it.  Both Galea and his assistant spill their guts to the prosecutors to get a deal. They implicated a lot of other athletes and specifically what banned treatments they received.  but exonerated Woods.  All that was well documented in story that was published by Sports Illustrated as all of that was going on (but the story was without names the prosecutors had).  it doesn't make sense to me that they would perjure themselves just in the case of Tiger and risk jail time. Plus Haney has said he had been there for number of the treatments and he never saw anything like that.

So if it happened it was probably through his doctor trainer guy Mark Lindsay.  Although he has flatley denied administratrating banned/illegal PEDs to any athlete and has never been proven to actually be doing so. However Tony Bosch of the baseball PED scandal fame claimed in Michael Bamberger's recent Tiger book that Lindsay had. (Even though Bamberger basically discredit's Bosch on a lot of things, he writes the Bosch Lindsay claims as if it is true. The more robust and better researched Keyteyan Tiger book disputes Lindsay giving Tiger any PEDs.  And Bosch doesn't claim witnessing anything directly between Lindsay or Tiger either)

For what it's worth...