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

[geauxforbroke]

Originally Posted by Jakester23

I totally agree and I think if tiger retired now jack would be the best ever but I think tiger has 7-10 good years left and possibly another 3-8 where he still csn get a win here and there. I think he will get to 19 without a doubt so then this won't even be a debate.

Originally Posted by Jakester23

I was never saying tiger has had a better record in majors. I said I think overall tiger is close now with a lot more time to add to what he already has done. IMO he's already passed Jack but I'd understand if anyone thinks Jack is the better.

So which is it?

[Jakester23]

If he wins the fed ex tiger

[geauxforbroke]

Originally Posted by Jakester23

If he wins the fed ex tiger

That will be the deciding factor?

[Jakester23]

I was kidding. I think this like comparing terry bradshaw to peyton manning. Bradshaw has 3 more titles but I can see that Peyton is better. That might not be a great example but that's all I can think of now. Maybe Peyton to Eli is better.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by phan52

Jack had to compete against the likes of Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Tom Wtson, Lee Trevino, Billy Casper and Raymond Floyd in their primes. Who is Tiger competing against? Phil Mickelson?

Players who are better than those players.

No doubt in my mind that if those players played today, they'd win far, far fewer majors.

In Jack's day, the top players were quite a bit separated from even the 50th best player in the field. Today, it's a sliver that separates Tiger from the 100th best player in the field. Virtually EVERYONE (except 20 people in the PGA Championship) is capable of winning a major these days. The list was considerably shorter in Jack's day.

[Jakester23]

That's what I ment by deeper fields. I highly doubt there was a stretch in jacks era when there were 19 different major winners in a row.

[Crim]

Right now...Jack. When all is said and done...Tiger.

[geauxforbroke]

Originally Posted by Jakester23

I was kidding. I think this like comparing terry bradshaw to peyton manning. Bradshaw has 3 more titles but I can see that Peyton is better. That might not be a great example but that's all I can think of now. Maybe Peyton to Eli is better.

It's not at all like comparing quarterbacks. There are some pretty crappy QB's that have won Super Bowls (e.g. Brad Johnson and Trent Dilfer), and there have been some pretty great QB's that never did (e.g. Dan Marino and Jim Kelly). There have been good quarterbacks that have won multiple Super Bowls (e.g. Terry Bradshaw and Ben Roethlisberger), and there have been great ones that have only won one (e.g. Brett Favre and Peyton Manning).

You can't compare team sports to individual sports.

At this point, there's an argument that Tiger has passed Jack already. I think it's a pretty weak argument though.

[Jakester23]

U think farve was great?

[geauxforbroke]

Originally Posted by Jakester23

U think farve was great?

Better than Roethlisberger, and certainly one of the top quarterbacks of the last 25 years. But where Favre ranks all-time has no bearing on my argument.

[Jakester23]

It does on my opinion of you

[geauxforbroke]

Originally Posted by Jakester23

It does on my opinion of you

Hahaha. Gotta love the sour grapes.

[Jakester23]

What do you mean?

[Fourputt]

Originally Posted by Jakester23

He set major wins as the bar not 2nds. Sorry but the # of 2nds jack has is a stupid reason why he's better. Why does he have only 73 tour wins in 586 starts then? I think the tour wins counts almost as much as majors. Especially since he's going to destroy the all time record.

Why?  It demonstrates that Jack performed better overall in majors than Tiger.  It isn't even close.  By yet another category Jack wins - Tiger has shown no ability to win on Sunday.  If he doesn't start with at least a share of the lead, he's not going to come out of the pack to win.  Not so with Jack.  In fact Jack was infamous for the "Bear" charge.  If Jack was within 3 or 4 strokes of the lead, anyone in front of him could hear the footsteps. Like T-rex in Jurassic Park.  And that intimidation factor lasted well into his 40's.

Nobody is really afraid of Tiger any more.  They've all figured out that he sucks on the weekend.  That just might be the Achilles heel that becomes the most important factor in his entire career.  If he can't figure out how to get his weekend nerves under control, he has no chance to catch Jack.

[9iron]

Originally Posted by iacas

Players who are better than those players.

No doubt in my mind that if those players played today, they'd win far, far fewer majors.

In Jack's day, the top players were quite a bit separated from even the 50th best player in the field. Today, it's a sliver that separates Tiger from the 100th best player in the field. Virtually EVERYONE (except 20 people in the PGA Championship) is capable of winning a major these days. The list was considerably shorter in Jack's day.

Erik, I have been reading your posts for years, and I generally agree with your point of view. Not here, though. To suggest that today's players are better than all of the Hall of Fame players that were mentioned in the post you responded doesn't ring true to me.

In my view, Arnold Palmer and his 7 majors are better than the 20th, 30th, 40th and 100th ranked players of today. Naturally, I don't think these current players are better than those players. They won more often, which is the standard. Maybe Arnie would win less majors today, maybe not. No way of really knowing. While it may be true in theory that anyone today can win a major, that was equally true back then. Plenty of guys were 1 time major winners in their career during Jack and Arnie's time.

If it were really true that anyone playing in a major today could win, then there would be a lot more one time winners today than in the past. There are 27 during Tiger's 17 seasons on Tour. In Arnie's first 17 seasons on Tour there were 25 one time winners. In Jack's first 17 seasons on Tour there were 23. Is this a "considerably shorter" list of players capable of winning a major? Not in my view.

Jack and Arnie also had to beat out the guys who won a LOT of majors. Jack's 5 best contemporaries won 35 majors between them. Arnie's 5 best contemporaries won 47 majors between them. Player won 9, Watson won 8, Arnie won 7, Trevino 7 and Ray Floyd 4. Of course Jack won 18. Tiger's best 5 contemporaries, to date anyway, pale in comparison. They are Phil with 5, Ernie with 4 (only 3 during Tiger's career), Vijay 3, Harrington 3, Cabrera 2. That adds up to 17 or 16 depending on how you look at it, both numbers being far, far less than the 35 wins amassed by Jack's contemporaries and the astounding 47 wins accumulated by Arnie's top peers.

Lastly, I am not convinced anyone on Tour today can win a major. In theory it looks like it should be true. Consider the 63rd seed coming out of stroke play won last year's US Amateur. Rich Been, Shaun Micheel, and Y.E. Yang won majors! But for all the Beems and Micheels of the world, there are players of similar accomplishments that won during Jack's day. And as all the best pros continually say, winning majors is hard to do. Also, it seems quite obvious that more players are closer to being bumped back to the Web.com Tour than are likely to ever win a major as there is an annual reshuffling of the deck, so to speak.

I'm always interested to read your thoughts, and rarely disagree. This time is one of the few times.

[Jakester23]

Its ok to be wrong 9iron Erik has it right link usual.

[jamo]

If it were really true that anyone playing in a major today could win, then there would be a lot more one time winners today than in the past. There are 27 during Tiger's 17 seasons on Tour. In Arnie's first 17 seasons on Tour there were 25 one time winners. In Jack's first 17 seasons on Tour there were 23. Is this a "considerably shorter" list of players capable of winning a major? Not in my view.

If you're looking to make a point using numbers, the amount of one-off major-winners means nothing, statistically speaking. It's just way too small of a sample size to actually prove anything. If you wanted that argument to mean something you'd have to open it up to something like the top 10 or 20 finishers in each major, and chart whether or not poorly-ranked players finish closer to the top of majors more often now than then. And even then the integrity of your argument is lessened. You'd also have to adjust for things like how the admissions policies for majors have changed.

---

I don't post in this tread often because it really boils down to one thing: Do you accept or deny the assertion that the Tour is deeper now than it was yesterday, and if you think it is deeper, is it four-majors-worth-it deeper? It's tough to prove with numbers because of the ways that the game has evolved (equipment, training, player development, globalization) and how the courses have changed (lengthening) means you can really compare apples-to-apples in the case of performance stats. You have to accept or deny nuanced, subjective arguments. Personally, I think there's no real way to deny that the world of golf is deeper today than it once was. To make it to the PGA Tour you don't have to beat out just Americans and a few Brits, you also have to play better than golfers from Australia, South Africa, South America, Canada, the rest of Europe, and Asia. You have to beat players who have done nothing but eat, sleep, and breathe golf since the day they were born. You have to beat out golfers who spent their teenage years at a boarding school for golf. You don't get to play against guys who were also club professionals during the winter. And you have to do all of that using equipment that effectively levels the playing field. I think it's unequivocal that the 100th-ranked player today is better than maybe even the 20th best player in 1970. Based on my arguments above, I also think Tiger's career is more impressive than Jack's was, and I think Tiger is the better player. That said, given the fact that 18>14 and Tiger himself has put so much emphasis on that number, I have trouble not putting Jack ahead on a GOAT list.

[saevel25]

Sorry i don't think its deeper. I think its tougher to win a major when you have 4-5 other guy winning multiple majors, than you do when your game is just off and no one else is around you.

Who'd did Tiger have to face against

Phil, well he won his first three from 2004 - 2006, years after Tiger's slam

Harrington was winning them when Tiger took his dive off the face of the earth

Look at Jack

Arnold - 7 majors

Gary Player - 9 majors

Billy Casper - 3 majors

Seve - 5 majors

Tom Watson - 8 Majors

There were just better golfers back then. Tiger was a new breed of golfer to. He came out and pummeled the tour, and they didn't know what hit them. Honestly i say Tiger had it easy winning the way he did.