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

[natureboy]

2 hours ago, saevel25 said:

Also, if you read my post. Since 1993 the odds of a US player winning a major based in the US dropped by 30% on average. That is when the world really turned into solid competition against the US golfers. Yet, you can even see that it went further back with how much the US struggled against the Europeans in the Ryder Cup once they expanded past just having a team from Great Britain. 

I'll have to examine your other post closer.

That's a good point to consider about the expansion to Continental Europe. Largely explains the poor showing of UK & Ireland in the 60's with many top tier European players not eligible. But considering the 200 million U.S. population base to 63 million in the U.K. & Ireland at the time, the latter did surprisingly well if population base was all that matters. IMO an established competitive golfing culture matters in producing elite players too.

Those same European players excluded from Ryder Cup were always eligible for the Majors. The Ryder Cup is also a limited field event. It concentrates the 12 top players of the European Tour. From what I've read, depth of field is still stronger for the 'typical' PGA event, though some non-major Euro events are now stronger than some of the 'minor' PGA events. That is a significant change in Euro competitiveness from the 60's.

Quote

The tournaments that drew world players to the US because of the money and prestige. I could say Tiger faced 25-30% tougher competition than Jack did.

To some extent that 30% drop sounds like it could be due to simply more international players occupying slots in the fields. If the period you mention covers when majors started to use OWGR for automatic qualification that has some not insignificant inherent issues in terms of strength of field. Having a guaranteed start rather than having to qualify would certainly make for an easier decision to travel to the event. But I'm not arguing against the policy decision facilitating international competition with a little points boost just trying to point out that field strength may not have been as weak in Jack's day as you seem to think.

Quote

Tiger wins. No doubt, he's the best ever. 

Compared to his peers, which is really the only thing I think you can do without speculative nuance I agree there's no question he's the best golfer.

I'm really just arguing that standouts of their caliber (so many more wins so many more majors) than typical players among already elite fields are so rare, that I expect they both represent near the achievable human pinnacle in golf talent, which I don't think really differs within a few generations. The nuances of comparison across eras is interesting to me so I'll debate relative points, but I'm against arguments undervaluing Jack's achievements against 'weak fields'. They both faced very stiff competition.

 

2 hours ago, Fourputt said:

But that stat goes directly to Tiger's lack of longevity (to this point in time).  If he hadn't had the issues that he's had, he wouldn't have missed all of those recent starts.  I don't see how you can diss Jack for being competitive over a longer period, and then still making many starts (which attracted more money to the events just by his presence) after his competitive career was past.  I don't know what the numbers work out to age for age to the point when Tiger was no longer starting in Majors, but that has to be a more telling number.

I'm not dissing Jack. I think his achievements are amazing. I also think the same of Tiger's record.

IMO winning percentage per start in the Majors is a very significant stat and Tiger has that in his favor (they are both top 10 and within ~ 2% of each other's number). That number is not the official one for Jack though, I truncated his Major starts to end at age 47, which I think is a reasonable cutoff for competitiveness.

If Tiger competes as long as Jack did his major win % (up to age 47) might stay about the same, increase, or decrease (more likely), but he certainly won't match the 18 Majors if he doesn't get like 22+ more major starts between now and age 47.

Edited February 11, 2016 by natureboy

[turtleback]

24 minutes ago, natureboy said:

 

I'm really just arguing that standouts of their caliber (so many more wins so many more majors) than typical players among already elite fields are so rare, that I expect they both represent near the achievable human pinnacle in golf talent, which I don't think really differs within a few generations. The nuances of comparison across eras is interesting to me so I'll debate relative points, but I'm against arguments undervaluing Jack's achievements against 'weak fields'. They both faced very stiff competition.

 

I think you seriously underestimate the difference in the level of dominance each had, when you lump them together as standouts of their caliber, because the calibers were not the same at all.  For the years 1997 through 2007 Tiger was the best player for every single year except 1998 and 2004, and for both 1996 and 2008 he was clearly the best player for the portion of the year he was active.

You will find it a challenging task to find anything like that number of years for which Jack was the best.  He was always in the top 3 or so, but not that many years where he was the best.  That is why he has so many fewer POY awards and NO Vardons.

Not only did Tiger have more years as the best player for the year, his dominance in those years was far beyond anything Jack ever did in HIS best years.  Tiger had winning streaks of 7, 6, and 5.  Jack's longest was 3 (which isn't even as long as Tigers 4 consecutive MAJORS).  There is the consecutive cut record.  The record setting winning margins in various majors.  The record setting margins by which his stroke averages beat his competitors.  

[saevel25]

7 hours ago, natureboy said:

To some extent that 30% drop sounds like it could be due to simply more international players occupying slots in the fields. If the period you mention covers when majors started to use OWGR for automatic qualification that has some not insignificant inherent issues in terms of strength of field. Having a guaranteed start rather than having to qualify would certainly make for an easier decision to travel to the event. But I'm not arguing against the policy decision facilitating international competition with a little points boost just trying to point out that field strength may not have been as weak in Jack's day as you seem to think

Yet those international players taking up the spot of a club pro is significant. Heck Ben Hogan only played in one Open Championship ever. The best player of his time, only traveled to the Open ONCE!. 

How many really good golfers just decided not to come to the United States during Jack's time because it was too expensive? If you didn't win or place in the money you are out a lot of money. It isn't like Dubai paying Rory 2 million dollars to play in their tournament. 

It's easy to see that Tiger played against much tougher competition because of the depth of the field. If he did, and if he scored more wins than Jack than he's the best golfer of all time. 

7 hours ago, natureboy said:

but I'm against arguments undervaluing Jack's achievements against 'weak fields'. They both faced very stiff competition

You say undervaluing. I am calling it correctly evaluating his wins based on a pretty important criteria the competition he faced. 

 

[iacas]

11 hours ago, natureboy said:

No confusion. My post accurately addressed the 1996 article where Jack was quoted & his statement about the money between his early days (1962) and when the article was written.

No, you used words like "today" and "present day." That doesn't mean 1996.

11 hours ago, natureboy said:

I'm not ignoring anything. I think in the 60's through today the 'average' U.S. based elite player (PGA Tour) was better than the 'average' elite player from abroad, but that did not necessarily limit ability of top talent from those less competitive tours to compete or win on tour. I expect that in that era the 'club pro' from down the street that Jack competed against could have been equal to if not a bit better than the typical tour pro from say Australia.

I agree, and I'm confused as to why you're making my point for me…

I agree that the international talent pool was small in Jack's day. What I disagree with is that it's small now, as you continue to consider only the growth of golfers in the U.S. and ignore the growth of the overall pool of "world golfers."

11 hours ago, natureboy said:

Before golf took off in the U.S. there were more players overseas in Europe & the British Commonwealth & better players tended to come from there. Some time after Ouimet, there were more players in the U.S. than abroad. But the strong established culture of play in those now relatively smaller golf population bases still could produce golfers capable of winning on the cash rich tour. I expect (but don't have numbers) that remained the case for quite a while with U.S. golf and worldwide golf participation numbers likely growing at roughly similar rates.

That's not backed up by history at all. Europe (since golf outside Europe and the U.S. was basically a non-starter) could not and did not compete with U.S. golfers from the 1940s to the 1970s. Only in the late 70s did we start to see the start of a European uprising, with Seve, Bernhard, Jose Maria, Faldo, and a few others. But heck, even that list is relatively small compared to what we see today…

So no, the internationals were not contributing to strength of field anywhere near like they are now.

11 hours ago, natureboy said:

Even accounting for the 'resurgence', from what I've read and heard it seems widely agreed that from the 60's to today, overseas tours were and are relatively less less competitive in talent depth.

We are not talking about the depth of international tours. Yes, they're shallower… because the great players only play a few events (the high paying ones) on their native tours. They play the bigger money events, and the illustrious events. That usually means the PGA Tour, and always means the majors, the WGCs, etc.

The greats play here because the money's better. They're still "international" players, and international players are contributing more now than ever to the strength of field.

11 hours ago, natureboy said:

IMO Ryder Cup reflects a relative closing of the gap in top talent and depth (somewhat) due to a richer European Tour, well-managed country player development, team organization, and personal match play experience & focus by the Euros. But it's certainly a significant change from the many lopsided contests of the late 40's through the 60's. The larger pool of better players at that time were U.S. based.

Yes, the rise of the international players alone perhaps accounts for almost a doubling of the strength of field alone. Of the top 30 players in the world right now, half of them are International. The same was not true at all in Jack's day.

It's very simple.

Imagine you have to create a five-man basketball team to compete. You get to choose from a town that has 5,000 residents. I get to choose from a town that has 50,000. The towns are otherwise equal except in size - your town is not an international basketball hotspot or anything.

The two teams play 100 games against each other. Which team wins most of them? Which team has the "best" overall player? Yeah, occasionally it'll be the 5K team. But the odds are very much against that.

Yes, the average basketball playing of the 5,000 or 50,000 is going to be about the same. It's just the average of a human being, then. But we're talking about choosing the five players from a pool of different sizes.

In Jack's day, the pool of available golfers was small. In Tiger's day, it's significantly larger. Since you're limited to 150 players, the 150 best from a pool of 60 million is going to be larger than the 150 best from a pool of 6 million.

9 hours ago, Fourputt said:

But that stat goes directly to Tiger's lack of longevity (to this point in time).

15 years of dominant golf is not enough for you? He's been on the PGA Tour for about 20 years.

Suppose Tiger won 18 majors and 79 PGA Tour events in six years and retired. You'd fault him for a lack of "longevity"?

The longevity argument has never made any sense to me. I actually think it's more impressive to do more in a shorter period of time, and in a more dominant fashion, than to hang on longer and spread your accomplishments out.

Plus, the longevity issue speaks to strength of field. Of course Jack could hold on longer - he was still not playing against fields as strong as Tiger faced week in and week out. Jack could start winning earlier and keep winning later because, again, the fields were weaker. He didn't have to play as well or beat as many people to win an event.

8 hours ago, natureboy said:

Whoopsie, actually was some confusion. I jumbled my date comparisons.

Purse size only supports the idea that the fields are significantly stronger today. I'm not sure why you continue to talk about it. It hurts your position.

8 hours ago, natureboy said:

That's a good point to consider about the expansion to Continental Europe. Largely explains the poor showing of UK & Ireland in the 60's with many top tier European players not eligible. But considering the 200 million U.S. population base to 63 million in the U.K. & Ireland at the time, the latter did surprisingly well if population base was all that matters. IMO an established competitive golfing culture matters in producing elite players too.

It can't matter too much - they basically got obliterated time and time again. The UK had a higher percentage of good golfers because they had a denser population of golfers. That's where the game began, after all.

But the number of international golfers in Jack's day playing at a PGA Tour level pales in comparison to the number today.

Talking about the Ryder Cup also hurts your position. It speaks directly to the rise in the number of high-level International players.

8 hours ago, natureboy said:

Those same European players excluded from Ryder Cup were always eligible for the Majors. The Ryder Cup is also a limited field event. It concentrates the 12 top players of the European Tour. From what I've read, depth of field is still stronger for the 'typical' PGA event, though some non-major Euro events are now stronger than some of the 'minor' PGA events. That is a significant change in Euro competitiveness from the 60's.

It's not about the two tours. The top international players play in the majors and WGCs together, and have for quite some time.

In Jack's day, there were relatively few good international players. Today there are many, many more.

This is not about comparing the two tours.

8 hours ago, natureboy said:

To some extent that 30% drop sounds like it could be due to simply more international players occupying slots in the fields. If the period you mention covers when majors started to use OWGR for automatic qualification that has some not insignificant inherent issues in terms of strength of field.

The points boosts available to players inside the top 30 or 40 in the world don't really apply. It applies to players further down on the list.

The simple fact remains that there are far more International players capable of winning tournaments and majors - significantly more - than there were in Jack's day. There are also significantly more U.S. players capable of winning tournaments and majors.

Ergo, strength of field is significantly higher today than in previous years.

But, heck, @turtleback calls this the icing.

8 hours ago, natureboy said:

I'm really just arguing that standouts of their caliber (so many more wins so many more majors) than typical players among already elite fields are so rare, that I expect they both represent near the achievable human pinnacle in golf talent, which I don't think really differs within a few generations. The nuances of comparison across eras is interesting to me so I'll debate relative points, but I'm against arguments undervaluing Jack's achievements against 'weak fields'. They both faced very stiff competition.

They did not. Jack played against a number of club pros who had no chance to win a tournament. Tiger competed against 100+ players all capable of winning on any given week, and the 10-30 not capable of winning were playing at a much higher level than the club pros in Jack's day.

No, we cannot definitively determine which was better. Jack could do no better than to beat the field he was given. But, given how much more Tiger dominated significantly stronger fields, we can certainly form opinions…

If Jack was a better overall golfer than Tiger - or even "the same" level of super-elite, yeah, he won four more majors (or three, if you go by his original accounting), but he didn't win as many regular events, nor did he win in as dominating a fashion as Tiger.

7 hours ago, turtleback said:

I think you seriously underestimate the difference in the level of dominance each had, when you lump them together as standouts of their caliber, because the calibers were not the same at all.  For the years 1997 through 2007 Tiger was the best player for every single year except 1998 and 2004, and for both 1996 and 2008 he was clearly the best player for the portion of the year he was active.

You will find it a challenging task to find anything like that number of years for which Jack was the best.  He was always in the top 3 or so, but not that many years where he was the best.  That is why he has so many fewer POY awards and NO Vardons.

Jack was less dominant over much weaker fields.
Tiger was more dominant over much stronger fields.

Jack won three or four more majors over much weaker fields.
Tiger won several more PGA Tour events over much stronger fields.

7 hours ago, turtleback said:

Not only did Tiger have more years as the best player for the year, his dominance in those years was far beyond anything Jack ever did in HIS best years. Tiger had winning streaks of 7, 6, and 5. Jack's longest was 3 (which isn't even as long as Tigers 4 consecutive MAJORS). There is the consecutive cut record. The record setting winning margins in various majors. The record setting margins by which his stroke averages beat his competitors.

Yeah, the more I consider it, the more my vote swings in favor of Tiger. While I don't think it'll ever top 60/40 in my own opinion (I'm considering him as retired… so that is based on no further accomplishments), it's crept up from 51/49 to something more like 56/44.

[turtleback]

2 hours ago, iacas said:

In Jack's day, there were relatively few good international players. Today there are many, many more.

 

Another thing that people forget.  Tiger has won every single one of his majors and every single one of his WGCs, and Players against fields that comprised the vast majority of the top 50 players in the world.

Even PLAYING in an event with the vast majority of the top 50 players is something that Jack (or anyone else of his or earlier generations) did very rarely,particularly at the part his career when he was piling up HIS numbers.  Because back then there were very few events that fit that bill.  It would be interesting to go back and try to find the first major in which substantially all of the top 50 players entered.

This is another aspect of globalism.  No more will we have a Ben Hogan who only plays one British Open in his career.  Or a Sam Snead who plays 2.  Or a Peter Thompson who wins 5 British Opens but rarely plays away from home.  Barring injury, every leading golfer is going to play in every major and every WGC, with the possible exception of the Asian one when they have that.  That is a relatively recent development in golf, one that was definitely NOT the case for much of Jack's career, but WAS the case for all of Tiger's 

Edited to add:  the rest of your post is why I do not spend much time on the field argument - you do it much better.

[natureboy]

On 2/8/2016 at 9:50 AM, saevel25 said:

 Here is just 1980 versus 1990. The number of golfers in each bin range. You can see in 1980 there was very few golfers who scored under 70.75. Then the number of golfers increased dramatically. In 1990 the low point for the elite shifted to under 69.25 (over 1 stroke better) and the number of golfers at the tail end shifted towards the right as well. If you shaded the area between the lines in the middle, that is how the field got more depth.

Here is adding in 2015,
Same thing the number of players on the crappy end shifted right, getting better. The number of elite players increased as well as you can see more players above the red line on the right side. 

As the tail end on the right raises upward the more elite players there are competing against Tiger, Rory, Jordan. Also, as more players shift right the higher probability of them being able to contend week in and week out in tournaments.

This is interesting. What's the source data? I wonder about the shape of the curves between 1980 and 1990. One looks like a power law distribution and the other is more typically normal / log-normal. Is it possible there is something in the arrangement of data that makes the 1980 data more of an apple to the later oranges? While I can understand a shift in the distribution, a wholesale change in its shape seems unlikely to me.

As far as score relative to par part of the problem in making an un-adjusted comparison is that club and ball technology advanced very rapidly in the 1990 to 2015 period and while courses attempted to keep up, many recognize that they didn't quite match the pace of tech advance, though I would say the disparity (at least on driver - irons are still advancing) has lessened of late as more courses have been remodeled, including some of the old classics the tour continues to play. 

[saevel25]

Just now, natureboy said:

This is interesting. What's the source data? I wonder about the shape of the curves between 1980 and 1990. One looks like a power law distribution and the other is more typically normal / log-normal. Is it possible there is something in the arrangement of data that makes the 1980 data more of an apple to the later oranges? While I can understand a shift in the distribution, a wholesale change in its shape seems unlikely to me.

PGA Tour's website ;)

That's because the bottom end in 1980 was terrible. 

I guess if the PGA Tour had 400 players in 1980 you'd might see it drop back down. It's just the way the bin's worked out to be. In the end, there was a lot of golfers who averaged above 72.25 in 1980. In 1990 it's significantly less. 

3 minutes ago, natureboy said:

As far as score relative to par part of the problem in making an un-adjusted comparison is that club and ball technology advanced very rapidly in the 1990 to 2015 period and while courses attempted to keep up, many recognize that they didn't quite match the pace of tech advance, though I would say the disparity (at least on driver - irons are still advancing) has lessened of late as more courses have been remodeled, including some of the old classics the tour continues to play. 

Doesn't matter. Like Jack said, golf technology has helped out the bottom end of the PGA tour because it helps the less precise. In that regard Tiger had to face people who were better because of technology. Jack didn't. That argument works against Jack's era. 

Course changes doesn't matter. Again, they all played the same course. The competition is what the competition. The graphs show that. There is always a handful of elite players. The fact is more and more players today are shifting towards that side. In the end golfers today are facing golfers who are more likely to shoot in the 60's than when Jack played. That makes it much more difficult to compete against. 

That makes Tiger's wins more impressive. Especially when you consider he demolished tournaments that typically drew the strongest players. 

 

[Fourputt]

21 hours ago, saevel25 said:

PGA Tour's website ;)

 

Doesn't matter. Like Jack said, golf technology has helped out the bottom end of the PGA tour because it helps the less precise. In that regard Tiger had to face people who were better because of technology. Jack didn't. That argument works against Jack's era. 

 

It may work against Jack's era, but it works in his favor personally.  The fact that he was able to play to his exceptional level with equipment that most of the field failed with (relatively speaking) is a simple testimony to his ability.  Your statement can be twisted back to support the Jack side of the argument, that it took a higher separation of talent to use that equipment and still lap the field than it did as clubs and balls became more user friendly.

Don't take this as arguing for or against either side.  I'm neutral in this war.  The only thing I will acknowledge unequivocally is that each was the best of his era.  I got to watch both of them play in their prime and enjoyed each immensely.

[Big Lex]

I may be replying to this a second time.....or third....I hope I don't contradict myself. 

Regarding pure golf skill judging by peak performance (I'm defining peak as a player's best 3-5 years within, say, one decade), Tiger Woods is, by far, the greatest golfer ever. 

Regarding total career record, I still give it to Jack, for more majors wins and runner-up finishes, and the span of time during which he remained at or near the top of the game, or at least still capable of winning. Easy to say this now, as it appears Tiger's future is very much in jeopardy, and he may never play the tour regularly again. 

What Tiger did is so incredible, one would never think it possible....the win percentages, margins, the cuts streaks, the scoring averages, it is literally almost impossible to believe when looking back on it. 

[turtleback]

2 hours ago, Fourputt said:

It may work against Jack's era, but it works in his favor personally.  The fact that he was able to play to his exceptional level with equipment that most of the field failed with (relatively speaking) is a simple testimony to his ability.  Your statement can be twisted back to support the Jack side of the argument, that it took a higher separation of talent to use that equipment and still lap the field than it did as clubs and balls became more user friendly.

Don't take this as arguing for or against either side.  I'm neutral in this war.  The only thing I will acknowledge unequivocally is that each was the best of his era.  I got to watch both of them play in their prime and enjoyed each immensely.

You always say this but somehow, like this time, your points always come down on Jack's side.

And you are right in one respect, one would have to completely twist @saevel25's (and Jack's) takes on the equipment issue to make any such a diametrically opposite claim.  Twist?  Heck you'd have to wring its neck.

[saevel25]

2 hours ago, Fourputt said:

Jack side of the argument, that it took a higher separation of talent to use that equipment and still lap the field than it did as clubs and balls became more user friendly.

I don't see it that side of it working well in Jack's favor. 

[Fourputt]

2 hours ago, saevel25 said:

I don't see it that side of it working well in Jack's favor. 

Because Jack was probably as much better than his competition as Tiger was of his.  Such a notion can never be absolutely proved or disproved, in large part because of the difference in the ease of use of the equipment each had available.  It's difficult to say if the equipment was what held Jack's competition back because a slight difference in ability led to a larger difference in results.

@turtlebackJack is just under 6 years older than me, so it's natural that he is my sentimental favorite.  I grew into golf when he was the dominant figure in the game.  I also have more respect for him as a person than I've had for Tiger, although Tiger seems to be changing his public persona a bit.  

I liked to watch both of them play golf.  They were both entertaining.  They were both by far the best players of their times.  I'm not interested in fighting over who was the best.  As far as I'm concerned they both were.  You can trot out statistics until the cows come home and it won't change the fact that they never played against each other, that they both came into professional golf under different circumstances, and for that reason any possible data you can come up with is going to be subject to some degree of doubt, at least for anyone who is really honest about it.  

[iacas]

2 minutes ago, Fourputt said:

Because Jack was probably as much better than his competition as Tiger was of his.  Such a notion can never be absolutely proved or disproved, in large part because of the difference in the ease of use of the equipment each had available.  It's difficult to say if the equipment was what held Jack's competition back because a slight difference in ability led to a larger difference in results.

I think the point is that the equipment let Jack separate himself more so than Tiger, so the fact that Tiger separated himself even more than Jack (by being more dominant, winning by more, etc.) shows that Tiger was more dominant.

Jack's competitors were handicapped by poor equipment. Tiger's were not.

[natureboy]

On 2/27/2016 at 0:48 PM, saevel25 said:

That's because the bottom end in 1980 was terrible.

It's just the way the bin's worked out to be. In the end, there was a lot of golfers who averaged above 72.25 in 1980. In 1990 it's significantly less. 

Doesn't matter. Like Jack said, golf technology has helped out the bottom end of the PGA tour because it helps the less precise. In that regard Tiger had to face people who were better because of technology. Jack didn't. That argument works against Jack's era. 

Raw scores were higher yes, but if the upper bound bin on your chart wasn't truncated, it would show a roughly normal distribution like the others. To compare the distributions, it's more helpful to include the min and the max for all the data sets on the x axis.

The chart below shows a pretty steady progression of the distribution toward lower scores over time. Below it is a chart showing average drive distance bins shifting over roughly the same intervals. The steady pace of the gains per decade (shift in the distribution peak / cohort / bin)  look pretty similar to me and I think the one explains the other.

I disagree with what Jack said. I see no evidence for it. Looks to me like the whole distribution has shifted and all players benefit. Maybe higher scoring pros tend to be early adopters of new tech, but it eventually permeates the field.

[saevel25]

 

25 minutes ago, natureboy said:

I disagree with what Jack said. I see no evidence for it. Looks to me like the whole distribution has shifted and all players benefit. Maybe higher scoring pros tend to be early adopters of new tech, but it eventually permeates the field.

When comparing the ELITE, top end players, technology does not benefit them nearly as much as it does the bottom end. Ball striking separates the elites from the non elites. Ball striking is all about hitting the sweet spot with more precision. 

The fact is golfers have gotten better overall. They are in better shape. They are more athletic. They use better technology. It makes it tougher for the elite players to win consistently. The more that curve shift towards the left the tougher it is for that tail end on the left to win week in and week out. 

[natureboy]

1 hour ago, saevel25 said:

 

When comparing the ELITE, top end players, technology does not benefit them nearly as much as it does the bottom end. Ball striking separates the elites from the non elites. Ball striking is all about hitting the sweet spot with more precision. 

The fact is golfers have gotten better overall. They are in better shape. They are more athletic. They use better technology. It makes it tougher for the elite players to win consistently. The more that curve shift towards the left the tougher it is for that tail end on the left to win week in and week out. 

Unless you are talking about like 3 players a consistent effect like this would change the shape of the distribution significantly over time as the ones benefitting crept up on the elite players. The elite players get the same tech boost lesser players get. If their skill lets them hit it on the screws more often they realize more distance / accuracy gains than the players who don't have their elite skills. But the technology does shift the distribution for the field as a whole toward lower scores over time. Really wish they had 1970's scoring data on the PGA site as I would expect the scoring average distribution to jump around but not shift so obviously over time.

Edited March 1, 2016 by natureboy

[natureboy]

On 3/1/2016 at 8:28 PM, saevel25 said:

When comparing the ELITE, top end players, technology does not benefit them nearly as much as it does the bottom end. Ball striking separates the elites from the non elites. Ball striking is all about hitting the sweet spot with more precision. 

The fact is golfers have gotten better overall. They are in better shape. They are more athletic. They use better technology. It makes it tougher for the elite players to win consistently. The more that curve shift towards the left the tougher it is for that tail end on the left to win week in and week out. 

 

On 3/1/2016 at 9:36 PM, natureboy said:

Unless you are talking about like 3 players a consistent effect like this would change the shape of the distribution significantly over time as the ones benefitting crept up on the elite players. The elite players get the same tech boost lesser players get. If their skill lets them hit it on the screws more often they realize more distance / accuracy gains than the players who don't have their elite skills. But the technology does shift the distribution for the field as a whole toward lower scores over time. Really wish they had 1970's scoring data on the PGA site as I would expect the scoring average distribution to jump around but not shift so obviously over time.

After a second look I could see an argument for a slight trend toward a higher peak / mode, which would mean a slighty narrowing of the scoring distribution over time so you / Jack may have a point. What effect there may be looks very small, though. Since the whole distribution (high and low end) is shifting, tech clearly isn't only helping poorer players, it could be helping them slightly more.

 

[iacas]

@natureboy, the chart also only goes back to 1981.

Game improvement clubs by their very nature improve the play of the lesser players, while the better players get significantly less out of them. Blades (all they had in the 60s and 70s, for the most part) are the opposite of game improvement clubs.