Tiger Woods Master Catch-All Discussion

[chspeed]

Found this. It's from 2017 though. Speith really fell off since then. Another possibility it raises is Rory who would "Have to earn approximately $7.5 million a year for 10 years to top what Woods had at 37."

 

Tiger Woods has won $110 million — can any golfer alive today catch him? - MarketWatch

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Jordan Spieth, 23, has the best chance to do it. Winning the Masters this weekend would help.

 

[nevets88]

4 hours ago, boogielicious said:

It was like watch Usain Bolt in a sprint but he gave a bunch of guys a head start!

And his shoelaces got untied towards the end and he stopped to lace back up.

[Zeph]

Someone might beat Tiger at some point, mostly because prize money is increasing and weren't all that high when he started winning. I'm more interested in won tournaments than prize money.

[nevets88]

If you're doing a strictly money measurement, if you include endorsements, a bit harder to measure under the table cash, and account for inflation, it'll take a even longer for someone to overtake.

[turtleback]

Getting ahead of him in total career earnings is the EASY part because at some point players who couldn't come close to being in his league will pass him due to inflation.  No one ever seriously thought Tom Kite was in Jack's league just because he passed him on the money list. 

Now, if someone leads the career list because their PERFORMANCE is comparable to Tiger and Jack, THAT would be significant.  But nothing like that is on the horizen.  Rory and Dustin and Jordan and Jason are learning that not only are they unable to reach the quality of even an average '97-'08 period Tiger season, they are unable to maintain any kind of lesser dominance for the long term like Tiger did.  
 

[colin007]

I think Tiger's beat the field streak of 89 straight tournaments is his most incredible stat of his career. It's really quite mind-blowing.

[boogielicious]

16 hours ago, colin007 said:

I think Tiger's beat the field streak of 89 straight tournaments is his most incredible stat of his career. It's really quite mind-blowing.

Don't forget about his made-the-cut streak too!

[iacas]

4 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

Don't forget about his made-the-cut streak too!

Pales in comparison. I’m with @colin007 on this one.

[saevel25]

Quote

From August 1999 through November 2000, Woods beat the field’s average score in an astounding 89 consecutive PGA Tour tournament rounds. That is roughly three times the length of the streak posted by his nearest competitor. (Only official PGA Tour stroke-play events are counted for this streak, so the WGC-Match Play, for example, is not included.)

Woods made the cut 142 times in a row. The next closest is Byron Nelson at 113. I think it would be easier to make the cut. You have 2 rounds of leeway. You can shoot 75 and 65 and make a cut.

That is really a crazy stat.

[boogielicious]

3 hours ago, iacas said:

Pales in comparison. I’m with @colin007 on this one.

It does, but it is just another part of the list of why he is the GOAT.

[Vinsk]

On 4/3/2019 at 8:56 AM, chspeed said:

Impossible to predict

Well a lot more reasonable than predicting what Tiger will do.

On 4/3/2019 at 8:56 AM, chspeed said:

And yes, this assumes Tiger earns a relatively modest amount from here on out, which is not an unreasonable prediction.

Much less reasonable than what @iacas stated.

[Golfnutgalen]

3 hours ago, saevel25 said:

Woods made the cut 142 times in a row. The next closest is Byron Nelson at 113. I think it would be easier to make the cut. You have 2 rounds of leeway. You can shoot 75 and 65 and make a cut.

That is really a crazy stat.

The beat the field streak of 89 is definitely impressive, but it only goes back to 1983 ignoring most of golf history. Now even though the consecutive cut stat does date back much further the actual record holder may not be Tiger. If you look at the PGA Tour's data it has Ben Hogan making a cut in every event from 1939-1947, a staggering 164 events. The actual total is higher, but we don't know which events he missed in 1938 and 1948. Sports Illustrated said the total was 177 in an old article, but I'm not confident about that number because they list the dates up to 1950 even though he withdrew in an event in 1948. Sam Snead may hold the unofficial record as well with at least 220 events from 1939-1951 without an MC according to the PGA Tour. He may have missed one cut in 1946 though which would give him 2 streaks of around 100+ which is still ridiculous.  

If we limit it to just events with a modern 36 hole cut line then we have our favorites Tiger and Jack at the top where they belong.

Tiger: 111 (142 events minus 31 with no cut)

Jack: 101 (minus 10 with no cut)

Here's the article if you guys are interested. It dates back to 2003, so you have to add a few more event to Tiger's total. I might have miscounted.

https://www.si.com/vault/2003/05/12/342809/the-real-cut-streak-forget-what-the-pga-tour-says-the-record-held-by-byron-nelson-should-belong-to-ben-hogan

 

[Zeph]

Someone posted an image or a graphic a few years back which compared various of these stats between Tiger and Phil IIRC. I never found it again, but the numbers were ridiculous.

[Robopz]

57 minutes ago, Golfnutgalen said:

The beat the field streak of 89 is definitely impressive, but it only goes back to 1983 ignoring most of golf history. Now even though the consecutive cut stat does date back much further the actual record holder may not be Tiger. If you look at the PGA Tour's data it has Ben Hogan making a cut in every event from 1939-1947, a staggering 164 events. The actual total is higher, but we don't know which events he missed in 1938 and 1948. Sports Illustrated said the total was 177 in an old article, but I'm not confident about that number because they list the dates up to 1950 even though he withdrew in an event in 1948. Sam Snead may hold the unofficial record as well with at least 220 events from 1939-1951 without an MC according to the PGA Tour. He may have missed one cut in 1946 though which would give him 2 streaks of around 100+ which is still ridiculous.  

If we limit it to just events with a modern 36 hole cut line then we have our favorites Tiger and Jack at the top where they belong.

Tiger: 111 (142 events minus 31 with no cut)

Jack: 101 (minus 10 with no cut)

Here's the article if you guys are interested. It dates back to 2003, so you have to add a few more event to Tiger's total. I might have miscounted.

https://www.si.com/vault/2003/05/12/342809/the-real-cut-streak-forget-what-the-pga-tour-says-the-record-held-by-byron-nelson-should-belong-to-ben-hogan

 

I went back in and studied Hogan's potential cut streak and found out it really wasn't. Problem with the old records is they are in complete. For a lot of events pre-1970 they show only who cashed or maybe made the cut but they don't consistently show who missed Cuts or dq'd or Wd'd .

As per the Hogan streak referenced in that article, (and confirming through newspaper archives) Hogan was dq'd in the second round along with Picard in St Petersburg, March of 1942, then WD after one round of the Texas opened in Feb. 1948. That makes Hogan's longest possible made cut streak 92 events. And there may be more we are still not aware of.  

As for Nelson. The tour went through every event Nelson played and verified his streak. 

I also went through Sneads. He has at least one injury WD at the Azalea Open in 1950. That gives him a max of 82 before that and 119 after that.  I have not had a chance to go through event by event to look for possible WD, DQ or MC in that 119. 

 

Edited April 4, 2019 by Robopz

[Golfnutgalen]

Thanks for fact checking just now! Man, where did you find some of that info??? I do love old (and new) stats. Either way Snead and Hogan should up there somewhere and are currently nowhere to be found in the official tally.

1. Tiger 142

2. Byron 113

3. Jack 105 (+6 British Opens)

4. Hale Irwin 86

5. Dow Finsterwald 72

6. Tom Kite 53

 

 

[Robopz]

1 hour ago, Golfnutgalen said:

Thanks for fact checking just now! Man, where did you find some of that info??? I do love old (and new) stats. Either way Snead and Hogan should up there somewhere and are currently nowhere to be found in the official tally.

1. Tiger 142

2. Byron 113

3. Jack 105 (+6 British Opens)

4. Hale Irwin 86

5. Dow Finsterwald 72

6. Tom Kite 53

 

 

The only reason Byron's is up there was when the Tour noted Jack's cut streak some people from the Nelson camp brought up Byron's.  Nelson kept impeccable records of everything that he played with course info the scores he shot the money he made and his expenses. With that, the Tour was able to go in and pretty easily establish that he hadn't missed a cut or anything that wasn't in his records. Nobody stepped forward and did the same thing for Hogan or Snead, probably because they knew there wasn't a longer streak in there. 

Like I said I haven't had a chance to go through Snead's potential 119, but if I had to bet, I'll find MCs or WDs that will cut it way way down.  The reason I think so, Snead had a group of guys who got organized when the tour did their records clean up in the late 1980s. They were protesting Snead's win total being reduced from 88 or 85 down to 81. (And all the reductions were legitimate by the way, in fact a whole bunch of really really sketchy wins were left in his 81. It became 82 when they came back and added his British Open win.)

 

[3jacker]

Expecting total prize money to increase is not a safe bet.

Without a TW and the interest he has generated over the past 20 yrs, there is no reason to assume the number of available events or the prize money will be remotely comparable to what has occurred during our lifetime.

[dennyjones]

The tour will only get what the market can bear.   When advertisers realize they aren't getting their monies worth in revenue, they advertise elsewhere.   Tiger, right now is a big draw every time he plays.   Advertisers realize this and will spend the bigger buck to get publicity.  Unless another personality steps up that has the draw of Tiger, I personally, don't see the prizes going up.   I believe when Tiger does retire, the purse strings will tighten.