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

[birdiedream]

I think his point that assuming everything being equal, the top 100 golf players out of 60,000,000 golfers is tougher than the top 100 players out of 15,000,000 golfers. I don't completely understand about your point about your ranking.

khale, you bring up some good arguments, but you might want to rethink this one. All Jack and Tiger had/have to do is beat the golfers who are capable of beating them. Even if your numbers are correct about the total number of people playing golf then and now, only maybe 100 are capable of beating either one in their time, and only 20-30 were/are serious threats.

[Game]

I think his point that assuming everything being equal, the top 100 golf players out of 60,000,000 golfers is tougher than the top 100 players out of 15,000,000 golfers. I don't completely understand about your point about your ranking.

What he is trying to say (i think) is that although you have a few million more golfers in the world, not many of them will ever be good enough to put pressure on the number one position so they really don't effect anything

[dbuck]

I guess statistically that may be correct that more golfers make it harder, but as a practical matter, 59,999,900 of them don't really have any effect.

[dbuck]

This is an opinion poll and everyone's opinion is of equal value.

I can't help but grin though at the number of these: " I didn't see Jack, or I have only seen Tiger, so I have to go with Tiger"

That's like saying, I have only driven a YUGO, so it must be the best car in the world.

Tiger at the 97 Masters and 2000 US Open was amazing. I must admit those are probably 2 of the greatest performances I have ever seen. Over all, though, I still put Jack as the best to date. A few strokes, and he would have 36 majors and I don't know if that will be matched. (overall record in majors). Tiger has 10 or so prime years left, though, so when all is said and done, my opinion might change.

I don't really go with all the more good players and deeper field rationale; at any given time when J or T were really on, there were only 15-20 that were really on their heels.

[KDub]

Your comment about equipment is so wrong. Jack's equipment were inferior but so were those of his opponents.

You gotta be kidding me about your statement, Did you ever use wood drivers/fairway woods, well I did when I first started golfing back in high school that is all we had and there is no comparison to my current set I have today. How good of a golfer would you be if you were using wood drivers, irons that were far less forgiving than today’s irons, balls that will NOT give you more/less spin on a drive or on the greens, state of the art putters, I could go on and on with the advancement in technology within the golf industry. Yes, I would agree with you Jack had inferior equipment but it doesn’t compare or come close to today’s high end equipment that Tiger is using. Let me ask you this: did Jack have hybrids to play with, did Jack start off his career with metal woods and forgiving irons NO so I will stick with my opinion about who the best golfer is and this is only my opinion

[The Recreational Golfer]

I think his point that assuming everything being equal, the top 100 golf players out of 60,000,000 golfers is tougher than the top 100 players out of 15,000,000 golfers. I don't completely understand about your point about your ranking.

A couple of the guys got it right. My neighbor, or 50M people like him who will never be anything but a duffer, deciding he wants to take up golf doesn't make it statistically any harder for Tiger to win. The relevant statistical argument is that Tiger is waaay over on the right of the normal distribution curve of golfing skill. The only golfers who matter are the ones also on the extreme right-hand tail of the curve, good enough to beat him. The rest don't count.

The idea of my official world ranking was just a way of saying that I am so far left of him on that curve that I'm not even a stray blade of grass in the line of his putt.

[HDon]

You gotta be kidding me about your statement, Did you ever use wood drivers/fairway woods, well I did when I first started golfing back in high school that is all we had and there is no comparison to my current set I have today. How good of a golfer would you be if you were using wood drivers, irons that were far less forgiving than today’s irons, balls that will NOT give you more/less spin on a drive or on the greens, state of the art putters, I could go on and on with the advancement in technology within the golf industry. Yes, I would agree with you Jack had inferior equipment but it doesn’t compare or come close to today’s high end equipment that Tiger is using. Let me ask you this: did Jack have hybrids to play with, did Jack start off his career with metal woods and forgiving irons NO so I will stick with my opinion about who the best golfer is and this is only my opinion

Interesting. Is there such a thing as a tournament where the players are limited to using older style equipment? If not, it would be an interesting novelty.

[mikejrubin]

Jack. If he were chasing Tiger's record, he would already have caught him.

[max power]

You gotta be kidding me about your statement, Did you ever use wood drivers/fairway woods, well I did when I first started golfing back in high school that is all we had and there is no comparison to my current set I have today. How good of a golfer would you be if you were using wood drivers, irons that were far less forgiving than today’s irons, balls that will NOT give you more/less spin on a drive or on the greens, state of the art putters, I could go on and on with the advancement in technology within the golf industry. Yes, I would agree with you Jack had inferior equipment but it doesn’t compare or come close to today’s high end equipment that Tiger is using. Let me ask you this: did Jack have hybrids to play with, did Jack start off his career with metal woods and forgiving irons NO so I will stick with my opinion about who the best golfer is and this is only my opinion

You're playing against the other golfers in a tournament, not against some set score. The other golfers had, and continue to have, access to the same equipment you do. It doesn't matter if the equipment in Jack's day was hickory shafts, niblicks, and mashies. He and all the other golfers would be using the same equipment. Tiger's equipment is superior, but so is that of his

competition . If anything, advances in equipment have narrowed the gap between the best ballstrikers (Tiger and Jack), and whoever is barely hanging on to his card. Tiger and Jack, by virtue of their superior ballstriking and overall ability can widen the gap between themselves and the journeyman when the equipment is less forgiving . Additionally, assuming there are 45 million additional golfers compared to the 1960's, it is inevitable that competition will be increased. It does not mean that Tiger's competition is 4x tougher than Jack's, but it is undeniably a tougher field. The additional 45 million golfers are not all hackers. If even only 1% are truly skilled golfers, that is still an extra 450,000 highly skilled golfers in the world compared to what was out there in the 1960's. Tiger's career isn't over yet, and if he never wins another major (or only 1 or 2) then Jack will rightfully still be considered the greatest golfer and major champion of all time. Tiger's stretch from 1997-2009 (and 2000-2009 in particular) will be considered the most dominant in the history of golf regardless of what happens in the future. It's a toss-up for me as it stands right at this moment , but I continue to root for Jack to hold onto the majors record. Regardless of whether you think Tiger or Jack is the greatest of all time it is a fact that Tiger has faced competition at least as strong as Jack's , and the equipment argument is irrelevant.

[Tugglife2]

I don't think it's fair to even attempt this argument until Tiger matches Jack in majors.

[KDub]

I don't think it's fair to even attempt this argument until Tiger matches Jack in majors.

I would agree!!

[QUACKSMACKER]

I think if Tiger can bounce back from his personnal issues, in time he will probe its the best golfer ever, but only time will tell

[bwdial]

Tiger Woods is, without a doubt, a supremely talented golfer, but I think there are some factors that tend to magnify his greatness to some degree.

When Jack Nicklaus began his professional career, there were two all-time legends in their primes that he had to compete with. Gary Player won nine majors, including the career grand slam. Arnold Palmer won seven. Palmer never was able to win the PGA Championship, but he was an incredibly popular golfer. Arnie's Army was extremely faithful to their favorite, and they weren't very keen on some chubby blond kid from Ohio dethroning their "King"... and they let Jack know it. There was a tremendous amount of animosity toward Nicklaus early on, and he was able to ignore it, and ultimately overcome it. When Tiger debuted on Tour, the reaction was just the opposite. Except for a few bigots in the crowds, the vast majority of the swelling galleries were decidedly "pro Tiger", often to the detriment of his playing partners' games. I read somewhere (so take it with a grain of salt) that Tour pros averaged a full stroke higher on average when paired with Tiger.

A lot of people say that the talent pool is much deeper now, and that is probably true. However, the talent pool is much more complacent now, as well. The money's (much, much) better so guys are able to keep their Tour cards by finishing in the top ten, week after week. This mentality of "play it safe... don't cost yourself $100,000 going after flags" had been bred into a generation of Tour pros when Tiger burst upon the scene. Remember Chip Beck's lay-up on 15 at the 1993 Masters? He decided to forgo the risk of a possible eagle that would have applied pressure to Langer in order to protect second place... in a major championship . Of course, this is the same generation of Tour pros with a sizable contingent who saw no need in even competing in the British Open because the courses didn't fit their styles of play. At least in Hogan's era there was a legitimate excuse not to go, since the Open usually conflicted with the PGA Championship.

Tiger's arrival on Tour caused a fair number of pros to simply turtle. Plenty of comments were made to the effect of "we're all just playing for second", which was easy to do since most of them had spent their careers doing just that anyway. Jack didn't have that luxury. He had Palmer and Player in their primes, as well as the mystique of Hogan and Snead still hanging around. Palmer never played for second. Palmer drove par-fours at U.S. Opens to come back from seven down and uprooted gorse bushes at British Opens. Player never backed down either. And, when their careers had faded and their skills had diminished a bit, Lee Trevino and Tom Watson (not to mention Billy Casper and Seve Ballesteros) were waiting. No rest for the weary! Those six men all appear in Golf Magazine's Top 20 golfers of all time. Between them, they tallied a total of 38 major championship victories.

Swimming in deep waters offshore is often much easier than in shallower water where the waves are breaking.

Technology is another issue in the debate. Everything... clubs, balls, fairways and greens... has improved tremendously since Jack's day. Drivers and fairway woods were actually made of wood. Irons had a shorter, utterly unforgiving blade shape. Balls were wound and had a liquid center, and didn't fly nearly as far as they do today. A lot of people are seduced by the incredible distances that players can hit the ball these days, but it can almost completely be attributed to equipment. It's not just the ball. Lofts are generally stronger. The 1 iron Hogan striped to the 18th hole at Merion is the rough equivalent of a 3 iron today. Tour pros in Jack's day didn't carry three or four wedges. There was no such thing as a hybrid... that was your 5 wood.

If you don't think technology has played a role in the sport, think about this. I am about an 18 handicap, and I hit my R580 (ancient technology by current standards) about as far as Tour pros averaged when I started playing golf in the early 1990s.

[pixel5]

If you put Tiger against Jack, both in their prime, Tiger would win. But Jack was the more consistent and enduring golfer. Even when he didn't win, he was always on the leader board. You can't say that about Tiger...he is either in 1st place or no place.

[max power]

If you don't think technology has played a role in the sport, think about this. I am about an 18 handicap, and I hit my R580 (ancient technology by current standards) about as far as Tour pros averaged when I started playing golf in the early 1990s.

And the courses are longer and everybody else is playing the same technology. How does that make it easier for Tiger?

[pavespawn]

I voted for Tiger which kinda broke my heart. I was really torn on this one. I think Jack is still the greatest right now but I believe that Tiger will surpass his records. I say this all even though I find Jack a little arrogant (and rightfully so I guess) and well Tiger is just a mess right now. I have always admired Arnie for his blue collar roots.

[bwdial]

I was speaking more to the notion that some have about the tremendous distances these guys are hitting the ball translating to them being vastly better players than players of another era, and therefore that the talent pool is so much deeper.

When Annika Sorenstam missed the cut on the PGA Tour, Ellen Goodman wrote a piece about how she hit the ball every bit as far as Ben Hogan did on the same course, as if that somehow put them on equal footing. She, of course, failed to mention that Sorenstam was using a driver with the highest C.O.R. allowed and a ball that would have brought Hogan to tears.

[Judah Ben-Hur]

I've never really sat down and watched Jack (or golf for that matter) back in the day. I just started playing 2 weeks ago. It would be interesting to see what the older players could have done with new equipment. Tennis and golf come to mind as far as equipment is concerned. Tigers biggest hurdle will be the mind game.