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

[MS256]

Originally Posted by saevel25

Ted Williams, best hitter in baseball history.

0.344 batting average and batted above .400 for a season

This is not about anyone's opinion of who was the best hitter. There would be plenty of opinions. It's simply that you said that you bet nobody would say Aaron...And the link shows that you are wrong.

I would probably pick Williams and Aaron tied for first, although Musial is my favorite, with Pujols second (just because I'm a Cardinals fan).

I know I should have Rose at the top but I just can't because I like power.

[phan52]

Hey phan I wasn't saying that. I was saying because he has the most hr's doesn't mean he's the best hitter of all time. I'd say Ted Williams is or if the ped's don't bother you maybe Bonds Don't tell me to stick to anything dbag.

No, that's pretty much what you said. Dbag, indeed...

[turtleback]

Originally Posted by Fourputt

You're working way too hard to run your guy's colors up the flagpole.  You can't win, no matter how may you may get to agree with because the data is inherently flawed.

I'd much rather go with the more measurable metric and state that each was the best of his era.  Since no realistic or valid comparison can be made from era to era because of the dramatic changes that the game has been subjected too, it's a useless endeavor to try and invent criteria for evaluating the different careers.

So how can you say this and then turn around and say jack was best.  That is the funny thing.  When the facts are piled up and all but one of them favor Tiger we get the "can't compare players of different eras" immediately followed by "Jack is GOAT". If you can't compare you can't compare, and that is a position I can respect, although I disagree with it.  But I cannot respect "can't compare" when it is followed by "Jack is GOAT."

[turtleback]

Originally Posted by phan52

Serious revisionist histrory there. Harry Vardon was a god of golf at the turn of the century and was certainly considered the GOAT, partly because he made a point to come to America to win another Major. And Walter Hagan was one of the most popular athletes in America in the twenties, rivaling Jack Dempsey and Babe Ruth, and was certainly considered the GOAT during his career, primarily because of his record in Majors and because he is the first American who went across the pond and won the British (four times, BTW). Anybody who was around in the forties would tell you that Byron Nelson would have broken every record if he hadn't stopped playing competitive golf, and was considered by many to be the GOAT (my Dad did till the day he died), and Ben Hogan gained his icon status because of how he persevered, particularly in the Majors after he was hurt, and that tilted things in his favor over Snead. .

Jack didn't invent the metric. It's been around since the beginning of the 20th Century.

Thanks for alerting us that you were going to give us serious revisionist history before doing so.  Your post is full o fillogic, whch I will encapsulate with one question:  How could Byron have been considered by any to be the GOAT when you claim that since the early 20th century the GOAT was the guy with the most majors?  Hmmmm.

[turtleback]

Originally Posted by saevel25

Ted Williams, best hitter in baseball history.

0.344 batting average and batted above .400 for a season

There are 3 guys in baseball history who had lifetime averages above 340 and hit an inordinate number of HRs for their time.  Ruth, Gehrig, and Williams.  And arguably Rogers Hornsby belongs in there with over 300 HRs and a 359 lifetime average.

But I'm with you on Williams, because he suffered from even more opportunity cost than Hogan and Snead, since he missed years for WW2 AND the Korean war.  Absent that he may well have broken Ruth's career HR record.

PS:  Sorry Eric, I should have multi-quoted.  My bad.

[theworldengine]

to chime in on the baseball discussion.  Barry Bonds GOAT AINEC.  Check out his baseball reference page, dude was a boss lol

[jamo]

Guys, please stick to the "Jack vs. Tiger" topic. It's one thing to use a baseball analogy, but 10+ posts debating the best hitters is enough. Especially since the answer is so clearly Ted Williams. ;-)

[Fourputt]

Originally Posted by turtleback

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fourputt

You're working way too hard to run your guy's colors up the flagpole.  You can't win, no matter how may you may get to agree with because the data is inherently flawed.

I'd much rather go with the more measurable metric and state that each was the best of his era.  Since no realistic or valid comparison can be made from era to era because of the dramatic changes that the game has been subjected too, it's a useless endeavor to try and invent criteria for evaluating the different careers.

So how can you say this and then turn around and say jack was best.  That is the funny thing.  When the facts are piled up and all but one of them favor Tiger we get the "can't compare players of different eras" immediately followed by "Jack is GOAT". If you can't compare you can't compare, and that is a position I can respect, although I disagree with it.  But I cannot respect "can't compare" when it is followed by "Jack is GOAT."

I don't think I've said Jack was best.  I can't make such a statement in honesty (Jack is definitely my favorite, both for his play and for his personal life).  Both Tiger and Jack are/were the best players at the time they played, and a few others (Hogan, Snead, Nelson, Hagen etc.) can be debated for their eras, but only against the guys who they competed with.  If Byron Nelson had had the desire to play golf, he might well have buried the lot, including Tiger and Jack, but he wanted to be a rancher and golf was only a cash cow for him to get where he wanted to be (he retired from golf at age 34).  You can't even project how he might have done had he stayed with the game, because so much of his success came during WWII (he won 18 times in 1945 - 11 consecutive) when most of his potential competition was fighting the war (Nelson had a blood disorder which made him ineligible for military service).

Just because Jack was my golfing idol, I still got on Tiger's bandwagon when he came up.  He somewhat tarnished his image with his extra-marital shenanigans, but I still pull for him on the course.  He is definitely one of the 2 or 3 best of all time, but that's the closest I can come to a definitive ranking.  I will make the same statement about Jack.  Anyone who thinks that one is clearly at the top of the heap is just fooling himself.  If Tiger goes on to win 100 times with 20 majors, then we have something more to talk about.

As it stands now, I can unequivocally state that Tiger is the best player in the last 25 years.

[Mulligan Jeff]

Tiger has won on 3 of the 4 venues for upcoming 2014 majors, the stage is set for the world's number 1.

[turtleback]

Originally Posted by Fourputt

I don't think I've said Jack was best.  I can't make such a statement in honesty (Jack is definitely my favorite, both for his play and for his personal life).  Both Tiger and Jack are/were the best players at the time they played, and a few others (Hogan, Snead, Nelson, Hagen etc.) can be debated for their eras, but only against the guys who they competed with.  If Byron Nelson had had the desire to play golf, he might well have buried the lot, including Tiger and Jack, but he wanted to be a rancher and golf was only a cash cow for him to get where he wanted to be (he retired from golf at age 34).  You can't even project how he might have done had he stayed with the game, because so much of his success came during WWII (he won 18 times in 1945 - 11 consecutive) when most of his potential competition was fighting the war (Nelson had a blood disorder which made him ineligible for military service).

Just because Jack was my golfing idol, I still got on Tiger's bandwagon when he came up.  He somewhat tarnished his image with his extra-marital shenanigans, but I still pull for him on the course.  He is definitely one of the 2 or 3 best of all time, but that's the closest I can come to a definitive ranking.  I will make the same statement about Jack.  Anyone who thinks that one is clearly at the top of the heap is just fooling himself.  If Tiger goes on to win 100 times with 20 majors, then we have something more to talk about.

As it stands now, I can unequivocally state that Tiger is the best player in the last 25 years.

I apologize because I misremembered what I thought you had said.   I looked back and see that several pages back you said Jack was your favorite, not that he was GOAT.  My bad.

I pretty much agree with your post, including Jack having been my golfing favorite for years and years.  But I disagree in that I think it is possible at times to compare and rank players of different eras.  But it has to be on a holistic basis, not just one number as so many do.  And I think that when you say that if Tiger gets to 20/100 we will have something more to talk about, on some level you might even agree.  For me the really tough one is Vardon.  I just do not know where to place him.

[phan52]

Originally Posted by turtleback

Thanks for alerting us that you were going to give us serious revisionist history before doing so.  Your post is full o fillogic, whch I will encapsulate with one question:  How could Byron have been considered by any to be the GOAT when you claim that since the early 20th century the GOAT was the guy with the most majors?  Hmmmm.

Cherrypicking at it's best. Read (or at least quote) the whole post.

The point is that Majors make great players. NOBODY thinks of Sam Snead as the greatest, although he has the most wins. Greg Norman probaly has more wins than anybody worldwide and he will NEVER be mistaken as the greatest.

You are insinuating that Jack himself came up with the Major metric to aggrandize himself. That is nonsense. The Major metric certainly goes back to at least Harry Vardon over 100 years ago.

[MS256]

In any sport (or in anything else) the bigger the talent pool the harder it is to be the best.

That doesn't mean that the big fish in the small pond can't still be the best...It's just a lot easier road so it's harder to make good comparisons.

College recruiters struggle with that every year. Hard to watch a high school game and know just what you are seeing so they usually go with the guy that is lighting it up against 6A competition over a guy that's setting the world on fire against 1A competition. (And sometimes they get it very wrong).

[iacas]

You are insinuating that Jack himself came up with the Major metric to aggrandize himself. That is nonsense. The Major metric certainly goes back to at least Harry Vardon over 100 years ago.

He kind of did. Heck the Masters wasn't even really a major for the first two decades it existed. Players were retroactively credited with winning a "major" years later. Vardon only really had the chance to play one "major" per year (except 1913) and virtually every year he played the field was absent of people from outside Britain. Jack is the player who emphasized majors. Hogan wanted to win "The Open" and only visited Britain once (winning). And that was JUST before Jack. Arnie re-popularized the British Open. Jack emphasized them.

[Fourputt]

Another point that I mentioned earlier which really applies to players before 1960, and that is the relative difficulty and expense of traveling from the US to Europe and vice versa.  The Boeing 707 was the first commercially successful passenger jet airliner and it went into service in 1957, but really wasn't widespread for several more years.  When I went into the Army in 1965 most domestic flights were still on propeller driven planes.  I didn't fly on a jet until 1970 when I went back on active duty.

This was a large factor in the level of competition in majors before 1960.  Makes it hard to compare just because the best players from the US and Europe didn't play in the same fields very often.

[Mulligan Jeff]

Back in Arnie's hey day the American's weren't high on The Open due to expensive travel costs and prize money - one could win The Open and still come out in the negative.

[brocks]

You are insinuating that Jack himself came up with the Major metric to aggrandize himself. That is nonsense. The Major metric certainly goes back to at least Harry Vardon over 100 years ago.

Depends what you mean by "major metric." Of course the British Open was a big deal 100 years ago, although it wasn't such a big deal 60 years ago, when it was so unusual for an American to enter it that the PGA didn't even bother to worry about whether its own championship conflicted with the date of the Open. It's kind of amazing that Snead and Hogan are given credit for a major win in the Open, when they each won it on a lark. Their great esteem for the Claret Jug can be seen in the fact that neither of them even went back to defend their title. Still, the other three majors were important to US fans, but they weren't everything. That's why your dad thought Nelson was the GOAT, even though Byron didn't have as many majors as Walter Hagen. Jack didn't do it by himself --- he had the help of writers like Dan Jenkins, back in the days when sports reporters were relevant --- but Jack absolutely did lobby for "most majors" to be the new standard for the GOAT, and he did it to promote himself. The facts make that clear. When Jack was an amateur, he thought Bobby Jones was the greatest golfer ever, but not because he had the most majors. The record of Jones that Jack admired was the Grand Slam --- the AMATEUR Grand Slam. Jack has written two full-length autobiographies, one in 1969, and one in 1996. In both of them, he talks about agonizing over his decision to turn pro in late 1961. And in both of them, he says that one of the biggest "cons" to turning pro was that it meant giving up on his dream to match the record of Bobby Jones. After he turned pro, he started winning tournaments at a very fast clip, and he changed his goal accordingly. He told reporters at the 1963 Masters, "My aim is to win more golf tournaments than anybody who ever lived. I want to be the greatest." http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=l-8qAAAAIBAJ&sjid;=1IgFAAAAIBAJ&pg;=3429%2C1549725 By 1965, however, he realized that would take too long -- even winning four times a year, it would take 20 years to catch Snead. So he switched goals again, to the Pro Grand Slam. He told reporters that he now thought that Hogan was the GOAT, but maybe Jack could take over by winning the pro Grand Slam. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1076860/index.htm That turned out to be harder than he thought, too. Jack never won more than two majors in a row, or even two in a year. But when a reporter tipped him off to the fact that he only needed a couple more majors to surpass the total of Jones, Jack finally saw a way that he could almost immediately become the GOAT. So he embraced it. In the early 70's, he just said "most majors" was now his personal goal, but once he achieved it, he actively lobbied for making it the standard for all golfers. "Money winnings has no relevancy," he said. "Money changes. You can't use that to compare. The only fair, adequate way to compare a player of one era against a player of another is his record in the major championships." http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=XlVNAAAAIBAJ&sjid;=BvsDAAAAIBAJ&pg;=7076%2C4326235 Consider the implications of that statement. Jack already had the most majors when he said it. So in other words, if you don't acknowledge that Jack is the GOAT, you are either unfair, or you're too stupid to know who has the most majors, because they are the ONLY fair way to compare players of different eras. It's amazing to me that he got away with this. Any golf fan should have known that guys like Vardon and Hagen only played one major a year for several years of their primes, and even had that cancelled by a world war. Can you imagine Tiger saying that the only fair way to evaluate players is by how many WGC's they have, or how many weeks as world #1? It was a dumb thing to say. Even the part about comparing money was a dumb thing to say. Lots of Jack fans think that golf began in 1962, but it didn't. There was a PGA tour for almost the previous 50 years. And just like today, most golf fans didn't want to think very hard, so they looked for a single metric to decide who was the best golfer. There were no world rankings, so for many of them, it was the money list. The guy who won the most money was the best player of the year. Majors were ill-defined (at various times, the Western, the Tam O'Shanter, the North-South, and even the LA Open were considered majors, while the British Open was not even considered an official win). The Player of the Year wasn't established until 1948. The Vardon Trophy wasn't established until 1937. But there was always a money list. Jack says you can't compare money across eras, but of course you can. You don't go straight across, but you can compare winnings adjusted for inflation, or winnings as a percentage of the total purses available, or just see who won the money list the most years. Hilariously, he then turns around and says not only is it OK to compare majors straight across, even though he had four majors a year to some of the other all-time greats' one or two majors a year, but it is the ONLY fair way to compare them! You can make a very good case that the majors Jack played had much weaker fields than the majors Tiger played. During the 60's, the British Open never had more than a dozen Americans in the field, including amateurs, seniors, and club pros, and the PGA Championship had only 50-odd tour players and 110+ club pros in its fields. In 1968, even Jack called fields like that "absurd." So for him to insist today that majors are all that matter when comparing his career to Tiger's is IMO a bit disingenuous. But when Jack made the statement quoted above, Tiger hadn't been born. He wasn't comparing himself against Tiger; he was comparing himself to Vardon and Hagen. And he said, with a straight face, that it was fair to compare their majors straight across. To use his word, that is absurd.

[turtleback]

Originally Posted by brocks

Depends what you mean by "major metric." Of course the British Open was a big deal 100 years ago, although it wasn't such a big deal 60 years ago, when it was so unusual for an American to enter it that the PGA didn't even bother to worry about whether its own championship conflicted with the date of the Open. It's kind of amazing that Snead and Hogan are given credit for a major win in the Open, when they each won it on a lark. Their great esteem for the Claret Jug can be seen in the fact that neither of them even went back to defend their title.

Still, the other three majors were important to US fans, but they weren't everything. That's why your dad thought Nelson was the GOAT, even though Byron didn't have as many majors as Walter Hagen.

Jack didn't do it by himself --- he had the help of writers like Dan Jenkins, back in the days when sports reporters were relevant --- but Jack absolutely did lobby for "most majors" to be the new standard for the GOAT, and he did it to promote himself. The facts make that clear.

When Jack was an amateur, he thought Bobby Jones was the greatest golfer ever, but not because he had the most majors. The record of Jones that Jack admired was the Grand Slam --- the AMATEUR Grand Slam. Jack has written two full-length autobiographies, one in 1969, and one in 1996. In both of them, he talks about agonizing over his decision to turn pro in late 1961. And in both of them, he says that one of the biggest "cons" to turning pro was that it meant giving up on his dream to match the record of Bobby Jones.

After he turned pro, he started winning tournaments at a very fast clip, and he changed his goal accordingly. He told reporters at the 1963 Masters, "My aim is to win more golf tournaments than anybody who ever lived. I want to be the greatest."

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=l-8qAAAAIBAJ&sjid;=1IgFAAAAIBAJ&pg;=3429%2C1549725

By 1965, however, he realized that would take too long -- even winning four times a year, it would take 20 years to catch Snead. So he switched goals again, to the Pro Grand Slam. He told reporters that he now thought that Hogan was the GOAT, but maybe Jack could take over by winning the pro Grand Slam.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1076860/index.htm

That turned out to be harder than he thought, too. Jack never won more than two majors in a row, or even two in a year. But when a reporter tipped him off to the fact that he only needed a couple more majors to surpass the total of Jones, Jack finally saw a way that he could almost immediately become the GOAT.

So he embraced it. In the early 70's, he just said "most majors" was now his personal goal, but once he achieved it, he actively lobbied for making it the standard for all golfers.

"Money winnings has no relevancy," he said. "Money changes. You can't use that to compare. The only fair, adequate way to compare a player of one era against a player of another is his record in the major championships."

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=XlVNAAAAIBAJ&sjid;=BvsDAAAAIBAJ&pg;=7076%2C4326235

Consider the implications of that statement. Jack already had the most majors when he said it. So in other words, if you don't acknowledge that Jack is the GOAT, you are either unfair, or you're too stupid to know who has the most majors, because they are the ONLY fair way to compare players of different eras.

It's amazing to me that he got away with this. Any golf fan should have known that guys like Vardon and Hagen only played one major a year for several years of their primes, and even had that cancelled by a world war. Can you imagine Tiger saying that the only fair way to evaluate players is by how many WGC's they have, or how many weeks as world #1?

It was a dumb thing to say. Even the part about comparing money was a dumb thing to say. Lots of Jack fans think that golf began in 1962, but it didn't. There was a PGA tour for almost the previous 50 years. And just like today, most golf fans didn't want to think very hard, so they looked for a single metric to decide who was the best golfer.

There were no world rankings, so for many of them, it was the money list. The guy who won the most money was the best player of the year. Majors were ill-defined (at various times, the Western, the Tam O'Shanter, the North-South, and even the LA Open were considered majors, while the British Open was not even considered an official win). The Player of the Year wasn't established until 1948. The Vardon Trophy wasn't established until 1937. But there was always a money list.

Jack says you can't compare money across eras, but of course you can. You don't go straight across, but you can compare winnings adjusted for inflation, or winnings as a percentage of the total purses available, or just see who won the money list the most years.

Hilariously, he then turns around and says not only is it OK to compare majors straight across, even though he had four majors a year to some of the other all-time greats' one or two majors a year, but it is the ONLY fair way to compare them!

You can make a very good case that the majors Jack played had much weaker fields than the majors Tiger played. During the 60's, the British Open never had more than a dozen Americans in the field, including amateurs, seniors, and club pros, and the PGA Championship had only 50-odd tour players and 110+ club pros in its fields. In 1968, even Jack called fields like that "absurd." So for him to insist today that majors are all that matter when comparing his career to Tiger's is IMO a bit disingenuous.

But when Jack made the statement quoted above, Tiger hadn't been born. He wasn't comparing himself against Tiger; he was comparing himself to Vardon and Hagen. And he said, with a straight face, that it was fair to compare their majors straight across.

To use his word, that is absurd.

Gee, you have the same "obvious lack of knowledge" that I have.  I bet you also think that if Vijay had been around in the Caucasian only days of the PGA they would have let him play.  LOL

But seriously, they will not address any of your specific points, not link to anything to even try to refute the quotes and links.  They will mumble some jumble about context and in a week they will be making the same disproven points that have been making for years.  But at least we fight the good fight.  Good to see you posting here again.

Interesting point about the comparability of money if looked at properly.  The PGA website now has some really interesting stats on this.  Unfortunately they have not reconstructed them back earlier than 1980.  One is what the percentage a player won compared to hat he would have won if he had come in first in every event he entered.

In 2000 Tiger won 63% of the maximum possible amount.  Number 2 was Phil at 29.46%.  Even more amazing is that in 2008 he won 78.25% of the maximum possible amount he could have won.  In second place was Vijay at 23.67%.  Of course 2008 is a little bit of a special case since it was a shortened year for him.

In Vijay's break-out year of 2004 he was at 38.44% of the maximum possible.  Going back to 1980 the only one other than Tiger who has exceeded Vijay's percentage is Tom Watson in 1980 at 41.68%.

I've given Tiger's 2 best years, but he was over 50% in 5 years all told, 1999. 2000, 2006, 2007, and 2008.  For 2013 he is at 46.91%, and I wouldn't bet against him getting to 50% this year.  He also has 2 years where he was in the 40s, 2002 and 2005. And in both cases his percent was higher than Watson's 1980 ercent..  And Watson was the only other player since 1980 to even get to 40.  So in the 34 years for which the data is available Tiger had 7 years that were better than  the next best player.  And only a very small handful of players who played a decent number of events has even reached 30%, Watson did it once, Trevino once, Norman twice,, Price once Vijay twice, and Rory once.  And that it other than Tiger.  And he has had 7 years in the 40s and above.

I would love to have the analogous numbers for Jack going back to 1962.  The great thing about this metric is that it automatically accounts for growth in purses and it doesn't penalize a guy like Tiger or Jack for playing a lean schedule.  I would guess that Jack had some years in the 40s and maybe even a year or two in the 50s.

For anyone who wants to look at these stats here is the link:

http://www.pgatour.com/stats/stat.02447.html#2013

[brocks]

I would love to have the analogous numbers for Jack going back to 1962.  The great thing about this metric is that it automatically accounts for growth in purses and it doesn't penalize a guy like Tiger or Jack for playing a lean schedule.  I would guess that Jack had some years in the 40s and maybe even a year or two in the 50s.

Interesting stat. I especially like it because it sort of takes the strength of field into account. There are exceptions, but usually the strongest events have the highest payouts, so winning a big event will give you a higher percentage of the yearly possible total than winning a minor event. In particular, the British Opens of the 50's and 60's usually didn't pay as much as a regular PGA tour event, which IMO was an accurate reflection of its strength of field. I don't know offhand whether Bobby Jones played any regular PGA events in 1930 on a sponsor's invitation. If not, I guess he has 100% for that year, along with all the old-time British Open champs, if we just restrict it to (retroactively) PGA-sanctioned events. Hogan's 1953, and probably Nelson's 1945, would also beat Tiger. But restricting it to golfers of the modern era, with a minimum of 12 events in a season, I agree it would be interesting to see how Jack's best years would compare. I suspect that although he would have a high average, his peaks would not be as high as Arnie's, or even Johnny Miller's, let alone Tiger's.