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

[Moxley]

7 minutes ago, iacas said:

I disagree.

I think those arguing "longevity" for Nicklaus are reaching for straws.

Imagine a situation where Jack Nicklaus got his record (18/73) and Tiger didn't exist. Someone comes out on Tour and wins every event in which they play. They win 18 majors in a row and 73 PGA Tour events. Then, after 4.5 years, they suffer an injury or just flat out decide to retire.

Identical record… and Jack is the better player because it took him 25 years to do it instead of 4.5? C'mon…

Yet that's what the "longevity" people would have to argue.

 

Indeed, but you've slightly changed what you are arguing - we were discussing the relative merits of 2 distributions of differing degrees of flatness ,where one has a higher peak but is beneath the flatter distribution most of the time.  The example you've just given is of a perfect record, which neither has. 

[iacas]

3 minutes ago, Moxley said:

Indeed, but you've slightly changed what you are arguing - we were discussing the relative merits of 2 distributions of differing degrees of flatness ,where one has a higher peak but is beneath the flatter distribution most of the time.  The example you've just given is of a perfect record, which neither has. 

I disagree that Tiger's distribution is below that of Jack's. I think it's higher. I think, as I've made very clear, that Tiger's 14 is a greater achievement than Jack's 18. And that Tiger's 79 is a greater achievement than Jack's 73.

So no, I've not changed what I'm arguing. The "longevity" people are trying to award bonus points to Jack because he did what he did over a longer period of time. Tiger achieved "more" in a shorter period of time, both of which are better.

[sheepdog]

It must really grate at you iacus to know Tiger will never catch Nicklaus and after all that's what people 100 years from now are going to look at, Jack won 18 of them, Tiger 14. Tiger's record at the Ryder Cup, The greatest player ever and he's 13-17-3 that's under .500. The greatest player ever carries a weak partner, shouldn't he? Nicklaus didn't play against second rate fields either. He played against Kings, Black Knights, Slammers, He played against folks with 4 Masters titles, 5 Britishs, Ever hear of Dave Hill, Bruce Crampton, Miller Barber, George Archer, Tom Weiskopf, Ken Still, Hubert Green, Johnny Miller? He played against Hogan who, to tell the truth, should be part of the conversation also. Tiger is a fanatastic player, I've seen him in person, I've watched him hit irons like lasers, make putts when it was on the line, I've seen Nicklaus do the same. Hey Jack has 18 majors, Tiger 14. Grates you doesn't it.

 

As far as your disrespect of Gary Player, how many majors have you won? Could you even make the cut on one of the mini tours? I see your credentials. I sure Gary Player doesn't give a shit about you either.

 

Hey check this out, from the PGA. I won't tell you who they have as number1 but they say it isn't even close.

https://www.pga.com/news/golf-buzz/10-greatest-golfers-all-time

 

 

 

Edited January 29, 2018 by sheepdog

[iacas]

22 minutes ago, sheepdog said:

It must really grate at you iacus to know Tiger will never catch Nicklaus and after all that's what people 100 years from now are going to look at, Jack won 18 of them, Tiger 14.

It doesn't. Tiger's the GOAT, IMO, and Jack's not going to win any more to get him any closer to Tiger's level.

22 minutes ago, sheepdog said:

Tiger's record at the Ryder Cup, The greatest player ever and he's 13-17-3 that's under .500.

Pointless.

22 minutes ago, sheepdog said:

He played against Hogan

No he didn't. Hogan was a few months from turning 50 when Jack won his first major.

Jack's competitors benefited from the same weak fields that let Jack win. They were big fish in small ponds. Jack has said as much - see the Nicklaus quote at the bottom.

Jack played against weaker, shallower fields. Tiger played against stronger, deeper fields. That's why Tiger's the GOAT, IMO, and the opinion of the vast majority of those who have voted in the poll.

22 minutes ago, sheepdog said:

Ever hear of Dave Hill, Bruce Crampton, Miller Barber, George Archer, Tom Weiskopf, Ken Still, Hubert Green, Johnny Miller?

Of course. I'm a student of the game. I know who all of those guys are, but you're kidding yourself if you think they'd have achieved even 3/4 of what they achieved in the game if they played in the modern era. Tiger wasn't playing against club pros making up 1/2-1/3 of the field.

22 minutes ago, sheepdog said:

Hey Jack has 18 majors, Tiger 14. Grates you doesn't it.

No. Not at all.

Tiger's the GOAT in my opinion. Why would Jack being second grate on me?

22 minutes ago, sheepdog said:

As far as your disrespect of Gary Player, how many majors have you won? Could you even make the cut on one of the mini tours? I see your credentials. I sure Gary Player doesn't give a shit about you either.

Relevance? I'm sure he doesn't. So what?

22 minutes ago, sheepdog said:

Hey check this out, from the PGA. I won't tell you who they have as number1 but they say it isn't even close.

That's an article by one guy. Big whoop. I give more weight to the poll up at the top of this discussion.

---

In Jack's own words:

“Then there is the incentive factor.”

“Except for the Masters, the biggest purse on the tour in my first year as a professional in 1962 was the Thunderbird Classic’s $100,000, with most tournaments offering between one-third and one-half that amount, to be divided between thirty-five to forty players. Win and you generally took home between $5,000 and $9,000. Finish last and you hardly made the bus fare to the next event – usually well under $100.”

“Thirty-four years later, in 1996, the average purse on tour was $1,400,000, with highs of $3,000,000 (Players and Tour Championship).” …

“In evaluating these numbers, consider if you will how many more contenders your business would have attracted, and how much more competitive it would have become, given comparably huge increases in financial incentive over the same time span. By then imagining how much harder it would have become for you to remain a market dominator, you will get a sense what it takes to become a dominating golf champion as we approach the second millennium.”

“Whether for the above reasons or any others, the fact is that, to be able to hold onto their cards, and earn a decent living, the golfers in the middle of the pack today have had to become as good as the players at the top were when I started out thirty and more years ago, while those in the top have become the equals of superstars of my generation.”

---

Oh, and there's this topic too:

BTW, we're happy to have you. There are plenty of other topics where we're going to agree on things, or plenty of other topics which aren't even really about opinions. So, check some of those out. We all care and love the game of golf, after all.

[sheepdog]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

No he didn't. Hogan was a few months from turning 50 when Jack won his first major.

Check your history my friend, Hogan and Nicklaus were paired together the last two rounds of the 60 U.S.Open. Hogan played in some of the majors till 1967. He was probably still calling Jack "boy" then like he did Palmer.

[iacas]

16 minutes ago, sheepdog said:

Check your history my friend, Hogan and Nicklaus were paired together the last two rounds of the 60 U.S.Open. Hogan played in some of the majors till 1967. He was probably still calling Jack "boy" then like he did Palmer.

I don't have to check my history. Hogan was 47 or 49. The played together, but to say they "competed" against one another is a stretch. Hogan was born in 1912. He was almost 50 when Jack won his first major. They didn't "compete" against one another. Hogan was no longer competitive.

Jack competed against Hogan about as much (actually probably even less than) Tiger "competed against" Jack.

[Buckeyebowman]

32 minutes ago, sheepdog said:

Check your history my friend, Hogan and Nicklaus were paired together the last two rounds of the 60 U.S.Open. Hogan played in some of the majors till 1967. He was probably still calling Jack "boy" then like he did Palmer.

Reading comprehension is a wonderful thing, Re-read iacas' post again. Jack didn't win the '60  US Open. That was one Arnie Palmer at Cherry Hills CC just outside Denver CO. Yes, Hogan and Nicklaus were paired there. In fact it led to the Hogan quote that went, something like, "I played with some fat kid who, if he understood anything at all about the game, would have made this place look silly!"

Jack was still an amateur then and finished in second place.

[iacas]

http://www.friedegg.co/podcasts/brandel-chamblee

Go to 30:45

"There will never be another Tiger Woods, ever. Tiger was Shakespeare. 500 years from now, if the species survives, they'll be talking about Tiger Woods as… by FAR the greatest golfer of all time. There's no bigger Jack Nicklaus fan in the world than me… from just a purely golf standpoint, when I'm around people that say Jack was the better player, I'm like 'well, you really haven't looked at it then.' Tiger's win % was double. His average margin of victory was double. His wins five shots or more was double."

He goes on from there. But the takeaway: Tiger Woods is by far the greatest golfer of all time.

 

[sheepdog]

9 minutes ago, iacas said:

http://www.friedegg.co/podcasts/brandel-chamblee

Go to 30:45

"There will never be another Tiger Woods, ever. Tiger was Shakespeare. 500 years from now, if the species survives, they'll be talking about Tiger Woods as… by FAR the greatest golfer of all time. There's no bigger Jack Nicklaus fan in the world than me… from just a purely golf standpoint, when I'm around people that say Jack was the better player, I'm like 'well, you really haven't looked at it then.' Tiger's win % was double. His average margin of victory was double. His wins five shots or more was double."

He goes on from there. But the takeaway: Tiger Woods is by far the greatest golfer of all time.

 

In your opinion, your 40, you never saw Jack or Hogan, at least in their prime, only heard of them. I remember a poll taken by the St. Louis Cardinals back a few years ago. Who was the greatest Cardinal ever. The winner, Albert Pujols. Fact is most of the people taking the poll never saw Musial play. They never saw Gibson pitch. No one alive ever saw Rogers Hornsby or Pepper Martin. Here we have the same situation. You can only comprehend what you are familiar with. Tiger has been in your headlines. I'm afraid my view might be tainted towards Jack. His headlines happened when I was young and impressionable. Many people older than me say Hogan for the same reason.

 

500 years from now all people will comprehend is that Tiger won 14 majors and Jack won 18.

[Groucho Valentine]

Nicklaus may end up with more hardware than tiger when its all done, but Tiger is the greatest player in the history of the game. Hagen won more majors than Palmer, Hogan, Snead etc, but i don't hear many conversations about Hagen being any better than them. 

Edited January 29, 2018 by Groucho Valentine

[iacas]

7 minutes ago, sheepdog said:

In your opinion, your 40, you never saw Jack or Hogan, at least in their prime, only heard of them.

I don't need to have seen Jack play in order to be able to consider things logically. One could argue you're simply letting nostalgia get the best of you. I'm free of that. I can look at the accomplishments, in black and white, and make deductions.

I just posted about Brandel Chamblee. Guy's won on the PGA Tour. Grew up idolizing Jack. He says it's Tiger Woods by far.

7 minutes ago, sheepdog said:

The winner, Albert Pujols. Fact is most of the people taking the poll never saw Musial play. They never saw Gibson pitch. No one alive ever saw Rogers Hornsby or Pepper Martin. Here we have the same situation.

It's not quite the same, no. Baseball is a team sport, and those guys played different positions. And even still, we could - given things like WAR and stuff, also look at their achievements in black and white and make a case for whichever had the highest WAR, or whichever contributed more to team success, or whatever. You could boil it down and look at their records.

Maybe it is Pujols.

P.S. Musial career WAR: 128.1, Rogers Hornsby was 127, Gibson 89.9, Pujols 101.8 before last year, and some of those were with the Angels of course. So with a whopping 30 seconds of research, I'd be inclined to say it's Musial or Hornsby by a pretty big margin. Pepper was below 30 WAR IIRC. Oh, Hornsby didn't spend his entire career with the Cards, so I'm back to Musial. And now up to all of 45 seconds thinking about this.

P.P.S. It's foolish of you to assume that because I didn't see Jack play, that I'm considering only having watched Tiger Woods play. It's foolish to assume I'm incapable of looking at the actual numbers.

7 minutes ago, sheepdog said:

You can only comprehend what you are familiar with.

Bullshit.

7 minutes ago, sheepdog said:

500 years from now all people will comprehend is that Tiger won 14 majors and Jack won 18.

Apparently, in 500 years, you believe society will have become completely moronic.

"18 > 14" is a completely simplistic, stupid way to look at the whole body of work, the competition they faced, etc. I used to argue with @turtleback that people were not so stupid as to boil it down to just that, but I later had to admit that I was wrong, and that people did indeed take such a simplistic, stupid view of it all.

And again, the 500 years quote isn't mine. It's Brandel Chamblee's.

[jbishop15]

Cool stat: Tiger, at twenty one years on tour (1996 - 2017), has missed 16 cuts. Jack at 21 years on tour (1962 - 1963) missed 15 cuts. Back of the napkin, Jack played in 407 events, Tiger played in 327.  

Amazing. Jack was truly an amazing player. Shallower fields helped out in making all of those cuts (and the lack of big money speaks to the amount of tournaments Jack played in), but it's still unbelievable. Jack is either the best golfer or second-best, which is still incredible. 

[sheepdog]

3 minutes ago, iacas said:

I don't need to have seen Jack play in order to be able to consider things logically. One could argue you're simply letting nostalgia get the best of you. I'm free of that. I can look at the accomplishments, in black and white, and make deductions.

I just posted about Brandel Chamblee. Guy's won on the PGA Tour. Grew up idolizing Jack. He says it's Tiger Woods by far.

It's not quite the same, no. Baseball is a team sport, and those guys played different positions. And even still, we could - given things like WAR and stuff, also look at their achievements in black and white and make a case for whichever had the highest WAR, or whichever contributed more to team success, or whatever. You could boil it down and look at their records.

Maybe it is Pujols.

P.S. Musial career WAR: 128.1, Rogers Hornsby was 127, Gibson 89.9, Pujols 101.8 before last year, and some of those were with the Angels of course. So with a whopping 30 seconds of research, I'd be inclined to say it's Musial or Hornsby by a pretty big margin. Pepper was below 30 WAR IIRC. Oh, Hornsby didn't spend his entire career with the Cards, so I'm back to Musial. And now up to all of 45 seconds thinking about this.

P.P.S. It's foolish of you to assume that because I didn't see Jack play, that I'm considering only having watched Tiger Woods play. It's foolish to assume I'm incapable of looking at the actual numbers.

Bullshit.

Apparently, in 500 years, you believe society will have become completely moronic.

"18 > 14" is a completely simplistic, stupid way to look at the whole body of work, the competition they faced, etc. I used to argue with @turtleback that people were not so stupid as to boil it down to just that, but I later had to admit that I was wrong, and that people did indeed take such a simplistic, stupid view of it all.

And again, the 500 years quote isn't mine. It's Brandel Chamblee's.

Aren't opinions what makes the world go round. Yours is different than mine. Brandel Chamblee's differs from Gary Player's. The greatest player ever is teeing it up this week, Player said he didn't know Jack was there.

Baseball might be different but the theory is the same, you never saw Nicklaus or Hogan, I never saw Hogan, Snead, Jones or Hagen

Mathematical stuff is bullshit to me. WAR?????? You can compare a left fielder to a pitcher using WAR????? It takes more than 30 seconds to form an opinion, it takes a lifetime.

 

 

[iacas]

4 minutes ago, sheepdog said:

Aren't opinions what makes the world go round. Yours is different than mine. Brandel Chamblee's differs from Gary Player's. The greatest player ever is teeing it up this week, Player said he didn't know Jack was there.

Yes, you trotted that out already…

4 minutes ago, sheepdog said:

Baseball might be different but the theory is the same, you never saw Nicklaus or Hogan, I never saw Hogan, Snead, Jones or Hagen

So? Do you just skip over the parts you don't like? I don't have to have seen them to be able to look at their accomplishments in black and white and form an opinion based on that.

And plenty of people, like Brandel, who DID see both vote for Tiger, too. What's their excuse, in your opinion?

4 minutes ago, sheepdog said:

Mathematical stuff is bullshit to me. WAR?????? You can compare a left fielder to a pitcher using WAR????? It takes more than 30 seconds to form an opinion, it takes a lifetime.

Oh, then until your dying breath, I guess you don't get to have one either, eh?

My argument exists on hundreds of posts in this topic. I'm happy to re-state it a few times when new people perk up the conversation, but I've reached my limit once again.

[klineka]

4 minutes ago, sheepdog said:

Mathematical stuff is bullshit to me. WAR?????? You can compare a left fielder to a pitcher using WAR????? It takes more than 30 seconds to form an opinion, it takes a lifetime.

So what is your opinion based off of then if its not based on statistics and mathematical stuff? Comparing 14 to 18 is quite literally "mathematical stuff" when you look at it in the simplest form.

[sheepdog]

Just now, klineka said:

So what is your opinion based off of then if its not based on statistics and mathematical stuff? Comparing 14 to 18 is quite literally "mathematical stuff" when you look at it in the simplest form.

Mathematical stuff works for some, it's like a golf instructor that uses a computer and goes from there. Works for some, never worked for me. My best advise when things were going haywire was from a good player I'd played with for years. He could straighten me out in minutes just by watching me and saying a sentence or two where as the instructor with the computer and the degree left me scratching my head. Stats like WAR don't take into consideration the aches and pains, what's going through someone's mind, the fight they had with the wife, the reaction to the crowds, the doubts, the pressures, It's just numbers, there's more to every part of life than that.

[iacas]

Oh my.

[klineka]

46 minutes ago, sheepdog said:

Stats like WAR don't take into consideration the aches and pains, what's going through someone's mind, the fight they had with the wife, the reaction to the crowds, the doubts, the pressures, It's just numbers, there's more to every part of life than that.

But it really does take all of that into consideration. The player's statistics/performance will reflect all of those variables, and the player's statistics reflect in the WAR. 

The better players are better at managing all of those different variables and still performing at a high level. 

You still didnt answer my original question. If you dont base your opinion on anything involving "mathematical stuff", what do you base your opinion on?