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

[geauxforbroke]

Originally Posted by phan52

Quote:

Originally Posted by iacas

You're missing the point: the opportunities were TO WIN, which is the only thing most people care about.

Yes, he won 18 because he was around quite a bit. But if Tiger wins 18 or 19 or 20 without equaling Jack's second-place finishes, so what? Almost nobody will care except the Jack apologists, because "number of times finishing second" will almost literally be the LAST and ONLY thing Jack would still have over Tiger. And it's a small thing to have, since again, almost nobody cares about second place finishes.

So no, in the context of GOAT, it's not important. The number of wins is important, the number of seconds is not.

Obviously YOU are missing the point. Tiger will never get to 18 because he doesn't have Jack's patience. I don't know how you can't see that Tiger's failure to win from behind in Majors isn't a problem for him.

Whatever. I'm done here.

JACK!!  18-14. You do the math.

You've finally said what you really mean. Jack getting all the seconds is all well and good, but to 99% of people, they won't factor into the GOAT discussion. It seems that your premise all along has been that Tiger's lack of 2nd implies that he isn't "in the hunt" as often as Jack was, and will therefore have a more difficult time getting to 19. I think that's a sound observation.

[iacas]

You've finally said what you really mean. Jack getting all the seconds is all well and good, but to 99% of people, they won't factor into the GOAT discussion.

Which as you know is exactly what I've been saying all along. I haven't been predicting what Tiger will do. Just saying what actually matters in determining GOAT. In other words, Phan agrees with me (and everyone else) but behaved as he did. How silly.

[mmoan2]

I think golf is one sport where second place, and even top 10 finishes, mean a great deal. All of these GOAT arguments have gone on forever in all sports and no one has ever developed a perfect metric to measure their claims. If they had, there'd be no discussions. It'd be a mattet of plugging numbers into a formula. I don't think 2nd place finishes are a primary factor in determining the best, but you can't discredit them as irrelevant. BTW- I believe that right now, Tiger is the best, but if he never wins another major, or even ends at 15 or 16, I may change my mind. Even if he kills Snead's record. Given 50 or so chances to win 4 majors from 2008-? would be an epic fail in my eyes and GOATs don't have epic fails that important.

[geauxforbroke]

Originally Posted by mmoan2

BTW- I believe that right now, Tiger is the best, but if he never wins another major, or even ends at 15 or 16, I may change my mind.

So his resume is currently good enough to be considered the GOAT, but if it doesn't change, it would then not be good enough?

[iacas]

Originally Posted by mmoan2

I don't think 2nd place finishes are a primary factor in determining the best, but you can't discredit them as irrelevant.

Yes you can.

I don't count second place finishes when I consider someone's level of greatness.

See? I just did it.

[Jakester23]

I think top tens in majors matter just much less than tour wins. Tigers wgc wins this year are much more significant then Jack's 19 2nds.

[9iron]

According to The Golf Channel broadcasters from last night's airing of yesterday's event from The Barclay's Tiger was asked in his press conference about winning 5 times vs. not winning any majors. The way they reported it Tiger stated he'd rather have won 1 major this year than have the 5 wins he achieved in non majors. Tiger's own metric hasn't changed. He still places the emphasis on winning majors.

[Jakester23]

No shit

[saevel25]

Of course Tiger's overall winning metric has changed. He's been quoted as saying he's been close in the majors. When before he use to say, coming in 2nd sucks. Seems to me, even tiger is getting use to not winning them. Not a good sign. For someone at Tiger's level, that small shift in recognition is huge. Its the edge. It use to be, if you don't accept anything else but winning, then you can force yourself to step up to that level. When you start saying. "Oh i've been close". Now your putting in a range of acceptance that hey, 4th place is doing alright.

[Jakester23]

He's said that if u put myself there enough times I will win. He's always said that. I guarantee he's not accepting 4th he's probably so sick of being asked about his 5 year drought in majors he's just saying whatever. What's he supposed to say f you have more majors than anyone besides Jack. There's really nothing he can say other than another year without one.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by Jakester23

He's said that if u put myself there enough times I will win. He's always said that. I guarantee he's not accepting 4th he's probably so sick of being asked about his 5 year drought in majors he's just saying whatever. What's he supposed to say f you have more majors than anyone besides Jack. There's really nothing he can say other than another year without one.

Yes, I don't think he's shifted his viewpoint. He's talked about giving himself chances.

And he's not dumb, so I think he realizes he's not really giving himself chances when Friday turns into Saturday.

[saevel25]

To me its all about mind set. He use to never say things like that.

Let me ask this, is 4th place putting your self there to win? Because here's how it is, 4th place is an end result. Now if he says, "Last 4 majors i had the 52 hole lead". That is saying he put himself there to win, and then proceeded not to (ala greg norman in the 80's when he did that in a calendar year). Saying after the fact, "4th place is putting my self there to win". It really isn't.

Sometimes you start saying your close, you start believing that's as good as you will get. I'm worried that Tiger is starting to believe he wont win another again. Cause people like tiger, who have been in the top for so long, who are accustomed to saying and believing in "Its winning or nothing", he just doesn't sound like the guy who hates to loose when he starts talking about 4th place is close. Cause when Tiger is on, 4th place is really really bad for him. do you think 4th place for tiger in 2000 would have been a good result, or would he said he was close. No he would said he sucked. 4th place in 2000 was horrible compared to how good he was. So there is some sort of issue here because when he says 4th place is close, he's comparing his game to those who won. He's comparing his game to those also around 4th place as well. Those around them say they were close, that means Tiger is basically saying he's as good as the next golfer. Back when Tiger was dominant, no one compared to him. That mean's tiger's accepted that his competitors around him, are as good as he is. that is not a good sign.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by saevel25

To me its all about mind set. He use to never say things like that.

Yes, he has. The only real difference is that earlier in his career he would either finish T43 or he'd win. There was no "close" to talk about - he was either out of the conversation or he got to talk about winning. He wasn't "close" as often, so he didn't have the opportunities to talk about being "close."

Originally Posted by saevel25

Sometimes you start saying your close, you start believing that's as good as you will get. I'm worried that Tiger is starting to believe he wont win another again.

I'm not worried about that, and I disagree that he's getting complacent.

[newtogolf]

Winning a Major has as a higher luck factor than all the other tournaments.  Measuring GOAT by just their Major performance is similar to evaluating a QB strictly by his Super Bowl performance or a baseball player by only his batting statistics in the World Series.  My thought process is this;

• Majors attract the most competitive fields in the sport, the worlds best golfers play in every major.
• You only get four chances a season to win one, which requires that going into one you have to be injury free and playing your best golf when they come around.
• Golf courses for Majors are tricked up, thicker rough, tighter fairways, tougher hole positions.  We've all seen Majors where this combination plus weather has favored golfers who teed off early or late.

While I hate Dan Marino, I believe he was a excellent QB who had an outstanding career.  I often find myself in the position of having to defend him when people discount him as one of the all time best simply because he never won a Super Bowl.

Tiger has dominated in golf.  He has more wins overall than Jack but 4 less Majors.

In discussions regarding the 2013 Player of the Year, the consensus in the media seems to weigh Tigers 5 wins this season over Phil's 3 wins that include a Major.  That means 5 non-Major wins trumps 1 Major and 2 non-Major victories.  Doing the math here, it seems the media is saying 3 non-Major >= 1 Major.  Using that math, Tiger only needs 12 more non-Major victories over Jack to equal his career accomplishment.

[MSchott]

Originally Posted by mmoan2

I think golf is one sport where second place, and even top 10 finishes, mean a great deal. All of these GOAT arguments have gone on forever in all sports and no one has ever developed a perfect metric to measure their claims. If they had, there'd be no discussions. It'd be a mattet of plugging numbers into a formula. I don't think 2nd place finishes are a primary factor in determining the best, but you can't discredit them as irrelevant. BTW- I believe that right now, Tiger is the best, but if he never wins another major, or even ends at 15 or 16, I may change my mind. Even if he kills Snead's record. Given 50 or so chances to win 4 majors from 2008-? would be an epic fail in my eyes and GOATs don't have epic fails that important.

While it's impressive that Jack came second 19 times in majors I guarantee he himself doesn't care. It doesn't matter where you place unless it's first. Nicklaus himself has said that no one remembers who came in second. And that's true. Arnold won the Masters in 1964. Guess who came in second? Jack, but it means nothing. He lost.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by newtogolf

Winning a Major has as a higher luck factor than all the other tournaments.

I disagree, and find your "what side of the field you're on" to be weak sauce. It's happened a few times, but it's also happened at other tournaments, too - wind in the afternoon, a rain shower that slows up greens for the afternoon groups, etc.

Baseball and football are team sports, so your baseball and football analogies don't really apply because the golfer is solely responsible for his performance in the majors - he's not relying on a defense or teammates.

[saevel25]

Quote:

In discussions regarding the 2013 Player of the Year, the consensus in the media seems to weigh Tigers 5 wins this season over Phil's 3 wins that include a Major.  That means 5 non-Major wins trumps 1 Major and 2 non-Major victories.  Doing the math here, it seems the media is saying 3 non-Major >= 1 Major.  Using that math, Tiger only needs 12 more non-Major victories over Jack to equal his career accomplishment.

I wouldn't say that the math works. There are other factors as well, like consistency of play as well, dominance of wins, things like that. The math isn't that simple.

[Fourputt]

Originally Posted by brocks

May I ask the people who think it's so important that Tiger says "most majors" is the standard, would they go along with him if he changed his mind, like Jack did? If he says he now thinks that "most wins with at least 64 of the world's top 100 players in the field" should be the standard, which would make the count something like 32 to 13 in Tiger's favor (adding Tiger's WGCs to his majors, and throwing out the majors Jack won before 1970, except his US Opens, which IMO is very, very generous), would you still think that whatever Tiger says is good enough for you?

The argument which that brings up is that then you have factor in the fact that Jack simply didn't have as many opportunities with a field of that magnitude, because the WGC events didn't exist then.  If a player makes a point of entering the biggest events each year, he has no control over how many other top 100 players also choose to play.

Originally Posted by iacas

Quote:

Originally Posted by saevel25

To me its all about mind set. He use to never say things like that.

Yes, he has. The only real difference is that earlier in his career he would either finish T43 or he'd win. There was no "close" to talk about - he was either out of the conversation or he got to talk about winning. He wasn't "close" as often, so he didn't have the opportunities to talk about being "close."

Quote:

Originally Posted by saevel25

Sometimes you start saying your close, you start believing that's as good as you will get. I'm worried that Tiger is starting to believe he wont win another again.

I'm not worried about that, and I disagree that he's getting complacent.

He may not be complacent, but he doesn't display the passion that he once had.  The fist pumps and f-bombs were part of the fire which defined his competitive nature.  I don't know how that factors into his lack of recent major success, but that part of his character seems much more mellow than it used to be.  That fire just doesn't seem to burn as brightly as it once did.