Jack vs. Tiger: Who's the Greatest Golfer?

[Dr. Manhattan]

On 3/10/2018 at 7:16 PM, skydog said:

I don’t want to put words into someone else’s mouth but I believe he’s making the point that the SOF difference between the 70s and 90s might not be as dramatic as some on here contend and he’s using the 97 field as an example of that. Acknowledging that of course it didn’t matter to the outcome of that event but it matters (for some) when thinking about tiger’s record vs. jack’s. 

I’ve acknowledged all along that Tiger beat significantly better fields than Jack...I’ve just never been fully committed to whether that difference was enough to make 14>18. Maybe it is, I don’t know. Or maybe it isn’t but Tiger is still the goat. 

I’ve also always said that if Tiger could extend his major career past the age of 32 then I would say he is the uncontested goat and it’s looking like that could happen. I hope it does.

I think right now an objective person can make a reasonable argument for either guy. If Tiger wins 5-10 more tournaments and 1-2 more majors, I don’t think there’s any discussion to be had.

 

I have no problem with anyone who sticks with Jack. His record is incredible. 18 majors is just tip of the iceberg when you look at all the high level finishes in majors as well. His 1986 Masters win is #GOAT quality for sure. His ballstriking and putting talent were out of this world. Long, straight, lots of GIR's, and lots of clutch putts. Legendary. 

Will be interesting to see how it goes over time. I have noticed a lot of the younger players on Tour seem to care a lot about winning the WGC's or at least they say so in their interviews. That could end up having an impact on how people view Tiger at some point. The guy has never played a chump change schedule. Even his regular Tour events tend to be pretty good fields.

Funnily enough Jack himself has helped contribute to Tiger's strength of wins argument by hosting the Memorial every year. Tiger has 5 wins there and it's one of the best regular tournaments on the tour. Same goes for Arnold's event where Tiger has 8 wins. These are not the John Deere Classic, lol. 

Add it all up and it is undeniable that Tiger has more high quality wins in golf than anyone. 14 majors, 2 PLAYERS, 18 WGC's, 2 FedEx Cups, 5 Jack Memorials, 8 Arnie Bay Hills, 6 straight USGA amateur championships, and so forth. 

It's true some of these events did not exist for Jack, but it's also true the FedEx Cup is very new and didn't exist for a HUGE chunk of Tiger's prime. He won 2 of the first 3 and then had his meltdown with Elin in late 2009. God knows how many more of them he would have won if we go back to 1997-2006. It's also true that Jack benefited compared to the likes of Hagen or Hogan due to world wars and general scheduling issues like the PGA/British situation. 

Edited March 12, 2018 by Dr. Manhattan

[Chanceman]

Anyone know what their Missed Cuts stats were/are? That might be one key factor in the who's best equation. I noted that Tiger has missed fewer cuts in his whole career than Jordan Speith in the last 4 years. Also my impression from the Valspar is that Tiger is aging very well. ps do the commentators gild his lily or what - every escape of Tiger's is greeted with oohs of admiration but at one point Casey almost jagged a birdie from the rough and they grumbled that he almost stole one!! 

[Dr. Manhattan]

6 minutes ago, Chanceman said:

Anyone know what their Missed Cuts stats were/are? That might be one key factor in the who's best equation. I noted that Tiger has missed fewer cuts in his whole career than Jordan Speith in the last 4 years. Also my impression from the Valspar is that Tiger is aging very well. ps do the commentators gild his lily or what - every escape of Tiger's is greeted with oohs of admiration but at one point Casey almost jagged a birdie from the rough and they grumbled that he almost stole one!! 

 

Aging very well? Gotta be sarcasm right? 42 year old with a 82 year old back and knee. 

[Chanceman]

4 minutes ago, Dr. Manhattan said:

 

Aging very well? Gotta be sarcasm right? 42 year old with a 82 year old back and knee. 

Best 82 year old swing I seen in a while.

[Dr. Manhattan]

1 minute ago, Chanceman said:

Best 82 year old swing I seen in a while.

 

This fusion surgery appears to be a miracle. We will see if it holds up. If so, it's too bad he did not try this 3-4 years ago when all this back trouble first started. 

[Chanceman]

Tiger Woods has missed 8 cuts of 76 Majors played compared to Jack Nicklaus missing 8 of 80 (to age 40). Points to Jack.

Also Jack was out of the top 10 only 22 times in that time or about 28%. Tiger has missed out 38 times ie 50%. So if consistency is a measure, points to Jack.

Love them both but it all comes back to Jack.

[GrandStranded]

1 hour ago, Chanceman said:

Tiger Woods has missed 8 cuts of 76 Majors played compared to Jack Nicklaus missing 8 of 80 (to age 40). Points to Jack.

Also Jack was out of the top 10 only 22 times in that time or about 28%. Tiger has missed out 38 times ie 50%. So if consistency is a measure, points to Jack.

Love them both but it all comes back to Jack.

Uh oh. This isn't going to be received well. 

[saevel25]

2 hours ago, Chanceman said:

Tiger Woods has missed 8 cuts of 76 Majors played compared to Jack Nicklaus missing 8 of 80 (to age 40). Points to Jack.

Tiger missed cut record is 142 tournaments with out missing a cut. Jack Nicklaus had a streak of 105 tournaments. If Jack wanted to get near that 142 mark, he would have to not miss a cut for another two seasons at the rate he played in tournaments. Bigger point to Tiger.  
 

2 hours ago, Chanceman said:

Also Jack was out of the top 10 only 22 times in that time or about 28%. Tiger has missed out 38 times ie 50%. So if consistency is a measure, points to Jack.

Again, this goes back to quality of opponents. Tiger faced more tougher opponents. It was easier for Jack to be in the Top-10. Tiger has a lower scoring average in Majors, and had a higher scoring margin between him and the field. Tiger dominated more.

[skydog]

6 hours ago, Dr. Manhattan said:

 

This fusion surgery appears to be a miracle. We will see if it holds up. If so, it's too bad he did not try this 3-4 years ago when all this back trouble first started. 

My understanding of any of his surgeries is minimal but I believe the fusion was seen as a high risk (potentially high reward) last resort effort. But I could be wrong on that. 

[Chanceman]

"Tiger faced more tougher opponents. It was easier for Jack to be in the Top-10"

Really?. I would not think Tiger's opponents have been better than Palmer, Player, Casper, Watson, Miller, Trevino, Thomson, Ballesteros, Norman, Faldo... Far from it. Maybe Els, Mickelson and Vijay. Rory and Speith of late.

[klineka]

2 hours ago, Chanceman said:

Tiger Woods has missed 8 cuts of 76 Majors played compared to Jack Nicklaus missing 8 of 80 (to age 40). Points to Jack.

Also Jack was out of the top 10 only 22 times in that time or about 28%. Tiger has missed out 38 times ie 50%. So if consistency is a measure, points to Jack.

Love them both but it all comes back to Jack.

Why are you only counting Nicklaus to the age of 40?

When you look at Jack's entire professional career in majors (not the only thing that matters in a GOAT discussion) he had roughly 70 top 10s out of 156 majors, which means he was out of the top 10 roughly 80 times or 55% of the time. Much different than your 28% statistic. 

When looking at missed cuts in Majors for Jack's entire professional career, its roughly 35 out of 156, which is 22%. 8 missed cuts out of 76 majors for Tiger is only 10% Points to Tiger.

 

50 minutes ago, GrandStranded said:

Uh oh. This isn't going to be received well. 

@Chanceman excluded the worst part of Jack's career in an attempt to make Jack's numbers look better. You are correct that logic like that (or lack of logic) is what is not going to be received well, not the fact that he is arguing in favor of Jack

In my opinion when comparing two players to determine who the GOAT is, you have to look at the entire careers of both players. Similar to a Lebron/MJ debate. People consider MJ's entire careeer vs. Lebron's entire career. They dont just look at the time Jordan played before playing baseball or before coming back to play for the Wizards. They look at the entire career, which is exactly what I feel should be done for Tiger/Jack. 

Just like MJ/LBJ, obviously LBJ and Tiger are still playing, which means they have the potential to boost their resumes, but you have to look at Jack's entire career vs. Tiger's entire career at this moment in time. 

 

[GrandStranded]

3 minutes ago, Chanceman said:

"Tiger faced more tougher opponents. It was easier for Jack to be in the Top-10"

Really?. I would not think Tiger's opponents have been better than Palmer, Player, Casper, Watson, Miller, Trevino, Thomson, Ballesteros, Norman, Faldo... Far from it. Maybe Els, Mickelson and Vijay. Rory and Speith of late.

Now prepare yourself for "depth of field" pushback. Soon to be followed by the one how the players you mentioned couldn't compete against todays superior athletes. I give it 10-15 minutes tops.

[Chanceman]

I am only countng Nicklaus to age 40 for the obvious reason that that is a comparable age. And also roughly the number of majors played. You cant compare Tiger to age 40 versus Jack to age 50 can you? As age works its magic it gets harder, take it from me. To say you have to compare over a whole career means this whole discussion has to wait until Tiger retires.

[RussUK]

4 minutes ago, skydog said:

My understanding of any of his surgeries is minimal but I believe the fusion was seen as a high risk (potentially high reward) last resort effort. But I could be wrong on that. 

I used to work for J&J Medical in the Trauma and Spinal team and you are pretty much correct. Fusion, of any kind whether spine, wrist or ankle, is a last resort as it can have a massive effect on a persons mobility.

Spinal fusion isnt as high risk as it was. Most of the surgeons we dealt with did fusion ops on a weekly basis and depending on which vertebrae were to be fused determined the amount of mobility a patient would have.

Tiger would have had a lot to think about when the subject of a fusion was brought up so the guy has a lot of courage in my book.

[GrandStranded]

11 minutes ago, RussUK said:

I used to work for J&J Medical in the Trauma and Spinal team and you are pretty much correct. Fusion, of any kind whether spine, wrist or ankle, is a last resort as it can have a massive effect on a persons mobility.

Spinal fusion isnt as high risk as it was. Most of the surgeons we dealt with did fusion ops on a weekly basis and depending on which vertebrae were to be fused determined the amount of mobility a patient would have.

Tiger would have had a lot to think about when the subject of a fusion was brought up so the guy has a lot of courage in my book.

It also had to be incredibly frustrating for an athlete like him to be so limited by the pain he was enduring at such an early age. I get what you're saying about courage, but I think the frustration  of dealing with the other surgeries, rehabs, etc culminated in his decision even more. I think we all hope this will work out for him. Quality of life is way more important then his golf game at this point.

[RussUK]

4 minutes ago, GrandStranded said:

It also had to be incredibly frustrating for an athlete like him to be so limited by the pain he was enduring at such an early age. I get what you're saying about courage, but I think the frustration  of dealing with the other surgeries, rehabs, etc culminated in his decision even more. I think we all hope this will work out for him. Quality of life is way more important then his golf game at this point.

Totally agree. Im sure if he had the choice of living pain free but not playing golf again or staying as he was he'd take the 1st option every time. Luckily he got the best of both worlds.

 

[iacas]

3 hours ago, Chanceman said:

Tiger Woods has missed 8 cuts of 76 Majors played compared to Jack Nicklaus missing 8 of 80 (to age 40). Points to Jack.

Also Jack was out of the top 10 only 22 times in that time or about 28%. Tiger has missed out 38 times ie 50%. So if consistency is a measure, points to Jack.

Love them both but it all comes back to Jack.

Two things for you there:

1. This entire discussion.

2. This post:

On 3/10/2018 at 9:00 PM, turtleback said:

But take a look at the field in one of Jack's early majors, the 1966 British Open.  Of the EIGHT Americans in the field (at a time when American golf was so dominant that they were in the midst of administering some of the worst beatings in the Ryder Cup that Britain ever suffered - and the vast majority of that field was made up of Brits) only one failed to make the cut, Fred Haas.  The other 7 Americans all finished in the top 15.

The 7 were Jack*, Doug Sanders*, Dave Marr, Phil Rodgers*, Arnie*, Dick Sikes*, and Julius Boros.  This included only half of the top ten money winners on the PGA (the *s).  The leading money winner for 1966, Billy Casper wasn't in the field - neither were the 5th, 7th, 9th or 10th.  I wonder in how many of Tiger's majors the leading money winner wasn't in the field.  Oops, probably none or almost none of them, since that was usually him.  But I'd bet anything that the vast majority of the top FIFTY money winners were in each of the fields for his majors.  

It can be pretty easy to finish in the top 10 when you're one of the best ever playing against a bunch of no-name players.

48 minutes ago, skydog said:

My understanding of any of his surgeries is minimal but I believe the fusion was seen as a high risk (potentially high reward) last resort effort. But I could be wrong on that. 

Yep. Pretty much that. High risk, high reward. He shared the added detail that his disc was "intact" (I think that's the word he used) so they really saw that as a last resort.

47 minutes ago, Chanceman said:

"Tiger faced more tougher opponents. It was easier for Jack to be in the Top-10"

Really?. I would not think Tiger's opponents have been better than Palmer, Player, Casper, Watson, Miller, Trevino, Thomson, Ballesteros, Norman, Faldo... Far from it. Maybe Els, Mickelson and Vijay. Rory and Speith of late.

Again, see the above.

There's absolutely no basis for the thought that fields were stronger or deeper back then. There are more players, more money, more of everything in the game.

Your argument - just listing names - has been repeated ad infinitum in this topic. It's easy to bat down.

[Dr. Manhattan]

I certainly think fields are deeper now, but Jack almost won the 1998 Masters at age 58 and Watson almost won the 2009 Open at age 59. Makes you wonder just how good those guys were in their prime.

Watson and Trevino stole a combined 8 majors from Jack. Only one of them was a blowout with Trevino winning the 1968 U.S. Open by 4 shots over Jack. The other 7 were all within 2 shots.