Strength and Depth of Field in Jack's Day and Tiger's Day

[nevets88]

Many, many, many people have, both here and in the Jack vs. Tiger thread. They'll cite Watson, Trevino, Palmer, etc.

And not just here. Like... everywhere. All over the interwebs and IRL.

[iacas]

http://time.com/tiger/

Quote

What is the ultimate criterion for deciding on who is the best ever? 
You can’t compare eras. You really can’t. It’s like, O.K., who’s the better [pro basketball] center: Bill Russell or Shaq? You just can’t say who was the best because the game has changed so much. Jack crossed so many eras because he played for so long, and he was in contention for so long. The same could be said for Sam Snead. How many eras did he play through? He ended up winning, what, at 54, when he won at Greensboro? I think you have to be able to say you’ve played in so many different eras, and I have. Most of my friends are on the senior tour now, the guys I grew up playing with, my compatriots.

 

[saevel25]

Quote

You had mentioned some of the young players – Spieth, Fowler, Watson – and they're great, but they seem boring compared to some of the guys from your era. Is that a good thing? Does golf need more characters?

Well, we had idiots for sure in my era, but what's not boring about these kids is the way that they play. Anybody who is a fan of the game knows it's a spectacular time to watch golf. The guys are just so much better than we were. Even the best players of my era – the best players now are just better. I guess it's just the way that the world is at the minute; they seem less interesting because they can't afford to be interesting, thanks to social media and all that. And you know, those things are supposed to be a benefit to the human race. I don't know if I see that.

http://www.rollingstone.com/sports/features/david-fehertys-charmed-life-golfs-iconoclast-comes-clean-20151209?page=3

Quote from Feherty. I like the bold part :). 

[ghalfaire]

For whatever it's worth there was an article on Strength of Field in the April Golf Magazine.  It is titled "Deep Thoughts" by Mark Broadie.  While I'm sure some won't like or agree with Mr. Broadie I think he deserves some credit for trying to define and measure Strength of Field.  I tried to find a link to the article but no luck.  Maybe some of you more computer literate can do that.  

[iacas]

On 4/15/2016 at 11:18 PM, ghalfaire said:

For whatever it's worth there was an article on Strength of Field in the April Golf Magazine.  It is titled "Deep Thoughts" by Mark Broadie.  While I'm sure some won't like or agree with Mr. Broadie I think he deserves some credit for trying to define and measure Strength of Field.  I tried to find a link to the article but no luck.  Maybe some of you more computer literate can do that.  

I saw one recently.

http://www.golf.com/golf-plus/proof-fields-arent-any-deeper-they-used-be

If you're talking about that one, it's not discussing strength of field at all. It's discussing depth of field. Quite literally if two players make up a 51% chance of winning that week (Tiger was between a 30-40% chance alone when he was on top of his game), then the "depth" of that field would have been "2."

Again, that's depth of field, not strength of field.

If it were strength, then it wouldn't change so rapidly, because the actual players are more consistent than the chart would indicate.

I talked with Mark about it, and he confirmed it's not discussing "strength" but "depth." Sometimes those words are used almost interchangeably, but he's not using them that way.

[ghalfaire]

12 hours ago, iacas said:

I saw one recently.

http://www.golf.com/golf-plus/proof-fields-arent-any-deeper-they-used-be

If you're talking about that one, it's not discussing strength of field at all. It's discussing depth of field. Quite literally if two players make up a 51% chance of winning that week (Tiger was between a 30-40% chance alone when he was on top of his game), then the "depth" of that field would have been "2."

Again, that's depth of field, not strength of field.

If it were strength, then it wouldn't change so rapidly, because the actual players are more consistent than the chart would indicate.

I talked with Mark about it, and he confirmed it's not discussing "strength" but "depth." Sometimes those words are used almost interchangeably, but he's not using them that way.

You're correct and there is a subtle difference between the two.  But I see the two pretty closely related although I admit I should not have conflated the two terms.  I think author did a good job of defining and measuring the depth of field.  Once could argue about the 50% number but the idea and measurement is sound.   I would assume that the Strength of Field would somehow be related to the abilities players in the field.  But what characteristic of the field would one measure to compare the field strength of say the Master's Tournament Vs the US Open Tournament?  I hear the talking heads constantly say the Player's Tournament should be a major as the Strength of field and venue are equivalent to the Majors.  Of course they offer no proof of the statement because there is none.  Doesn't mean they are wrong, just that they do not prove they are correct either. E.G. it is an opinion not a fact.

So let me submit this for thought.  Somehow or another I would think Strength of Field is tightly correlated to players in the field abilities' to score.   So a stronger field would have a lower scoring average than a weaker field, adjusted for venue slope & rating of course.  That intuitively seems like what most are talking about when they discuss "strength of field".  So I believe it would be reasonable to measure the Strength of Field of various tournaments based on stroke difference in the adjusted average scores of the field.  Over short periods of time, say two to five years, I would think this a good measure of Strength of Field and allows for comparison of fields of different tournaments.  I would mention however this measure does in any way consider the distribution of the players in the field individual scores (e.g. these data don't permit calculation of the probability that Player A will win a given Tournament).  But over a longer period of time, say 20 years, the comparison would not be meaningful using these data.  Just too many other things change in technology to be able to properly adjust the calculations.

So there is my 2 cents worth.  As to the survey I don't know how to compare Jack's and Tiger's achievements other than to say in their own time the were the best golfers in the field by far. 

[newtogolf]

6 minutes ago, ghalfaire said:

You're correct and there is a subtle difference between the two.  But I see the two pretty closely related although I admit I should not have conflated the two terms.  I think author did a good job of defining and measuring the depth of field.  Once could argue about the 50% number but the idea and measurement is sound.   I would assume that the Strength of Field would somehow be related to the abilities players in the field.  But what characteristic of the field would one measure to compare the field strength of say the Master's Tournament Vs the US Open Tournament?  I hear the talking heads constantly say the Player's Tournament should be a major as the Strength of field and venue are equivalent to the Majors.  Of course they offer no proof of the statement because there is none.  Doesn't mean they are wrong, just that they do not prove they are correct either. E.G. it is an opinion not a fact.

So let me submit this for thought.  Somehow or another I would think Strength of Field is tightly correlated to players in the field abilities' to score.   So a stronger field would have a lower scoring average than a weaker field, adjusted for venue slope & rating of course.  That intuitively seems like what most are talking about when they discuss "strength of field".  So I believe it would be reasonable to measure the Strength of Field of various tournaments based on stroke difference in the adjusted average scores of the field.  Over short periods of time, say two to five years, I would think this a good measure of Strength of Field and allows for comparison of fields of different tournaments.  I would mention however this measure does in any way consider the distribution of the players in the field individual scores (e.g. these data don't permit calculation of the probability that Player A will win a given Tournament).  But over a longer period of time, say 20 years, the comparison would not be meaningful using these data.  Just too many other things change in technology to be able to properly adjust the calculations.

So there is my 2 cents worth.  As to the survey I don't know how to compare Jack's and Tiger's achievements other than to say in their own time the were the best golfers in the field by far. 

The comparisons also wouldn't consider weather and course conditions which we know have a major impact on scores.  

[natureboy]

1 hour ago, newtogolf said:

The comparisons also wouldn't consider weather and course conditions which we know have a major impact on scores.  

That can be accounted for (at least mostly) in calculating an adjusted score.

 

 

Edited April 16, 2016 by natureboy

[iacas]

Strength and depth are not very closely related, no. I don't think so. Again, you wouldn't see major jumps in only a few years in strength like you do in "depth."

He didn't use "depth" as we sometimes do.

[ghalfaire]

6 hours ago, iacas said:

Strength and depth are not very closely related, no. I don't think so. Again, you wouldn't see major jumps in only a few years in strength like you do in "depth."

He didn't use "depth" as we sometimes do.

Well I started more of a conversation than I intended.  Again you're correct that they are not the same thing and I suppose I should have said how I believe they're related.  They are related in that the calculation of each is made from pretty much the same data base of scores of players in the field or in other words player performance is basic to the calculation of both depth and strength of field..  But because the Strength of field is not influenced by the distribution of the scores it will not change much when a super player (Tiger) shows up. The super player is just another datum added to the averages.  But when a player like Tiger shows up and is so much better that he has  30% probably of winning when he is in the field, it certainly changes the depth of the field quickly.  So no argument with what you said about one being quick to move and the other much slower.

Now I'm done as I just thought the article was worth a read and wanted to let the forum know about it. 

[JodieMudd]

It's more interesting to compare them both to today's players. 

I think if tiger was a his peak right now he would probably win less than half the tournaments he did.

Jack would be totally lost in my opinion, and would probably have a career akin to the likes of kuchar/dufner/mahan . 

[Coronagolfman]

On 4/22/2014 at 10:47 AM, cipher said:

I look at it this way, in 1980 there were 40 players within' 2 strokes of the best scoring average on the tour.  In 2013 there were 86 players within' two strokes of the best scoring average.

I would agree with the information in the quote that seems to indicate that there are a lot more players on the tour who are closer in scoring average then there were 50 years ago.  Equipment, competition, instruction and worldwide growth of the game has made the overall PGA tour fields better as a whole than 50 years ago. 

Now, does that mean that Jack Nicklaus would have had the same amount of difficulty in his time that Tiger had in his in terms of competitors that he had to beat in the Majors?  That is hard to say - every year we see a handful of players that seem to contend in majors and in many cases its the same guys.  But winning majors is still pretty hard.  Even a guy like Jordan Spieth who has had tremendous success in the majors over the past calendar year came up empty when he had this year's Masters in sight only to wash it away at #12. Did Tom Watson or Lee Trevino in Jack's day take away majors that Jack might have won?  Did Phil and a number of guys winning only their first or second career majors take away possible wins by Tiger in those events?  Most likely.

It is still a very hard business to compare players across their timelines as there are so many factors involved in each situation. Probably should be just enough to recognize each player for their success in their time and measure things decade to decade.

[mvmac]

 

 

[xcott]

I think that when Jack played the field was like the LPGA field in terms of depth about 10 years ago.  I don't say this to bring down Jack to but to show how good Tiger really was. I truly believe what Tiger did might be the greatest sports accomplishment in history. If someone could repeat it today it would be even greater. 

[turtleback]

2 hours ago, xcott said:

I think that when Jack played the field was like the LPGA field in terms of depth about 10 years ago.  I don't say this to bring down Jack to but to show how good Tiger really was. I truly believe what Tiger did might be the greatest sports accomplishment in history. If someone could repeat it today it would be even greater. 

I think you are right and that is why I equate Tiger's 14 and Jack's 18 or even put Tiger's count above Jack's in value.  And if one of the current stars wins even 10 I would put them right up there as well.

 

[iacas]

13 minutes ago, turtleback said:

I think you are right and that is why I equate Tiger's 14 and Jack's 18 or even put Tiger's count above Jack's in value.  And if one of the current stars wins even 10 I would put them right up there as well.

FWIW I don't know if I would go as low as 10, but 11 or 12 are quite likely.

[iacas]

 

[natureboy]

On 5/2/2016 at 3:18 AM, JodieMudd said:

It's more interesting to compare them both to today's players. 

I think if tiger was a his peak right now he would probably win less than half the tournaments he did.

Jack would be totally lost in my opinion, and would probably have a career akin to the likes of kuchar/dufner/mahan . 

If Jack was playing his old clubs, sure. But if he had learned to play with the new equipment he'd likely be right up there with Tiger. Tiger in his peak would win just as much IMO. See my reason below.

On 5/2/2016 at 4:35 AM, Coronagolfman said:

I would agree with the information in the quote that seems to indicate that there are a lot more players on the tour who are closer in scoring average then there were 50 years ago.  Equipment, competition, instruction and worldwide growth of the game has made the overall PGA tour fields better as a whole than 50 years ago. 

Now, does that mean that Jack Nicklaus would have had the same amount of difficulty in his time that Tiger had in his in terms of competitors that he had to beat in the Majors?  That is hard to say - every year we see a handful of players that seem to contend in majors and in many cases its the same guys.  But winning majors is still pretty hard.  Even a guy like Jordan Spieth who has had tremendous success in the majors over the past calendar year came up empty when he had this year's Masters in sight only to wash it away at #12. Did Tom Watson or Lee Trevino in Jack's day take away majors that Jack might have won?  Did Phil and a number of guys winning only their first or second career majors take away possible wins by Tiger in those events?  Most likely.

It is still a very hard business to compare players across their timelines as there are so many factors involved in each situation. Probably should be just enough to recognize each player for their success in their time and measure things decade to decade.

The field is likely a bit stronger, especially tournament to tournament. I agree with the 'great player' effect. See below.

On 6/20/2016 at 0:40 PM, turtleback said:

I think you are right and that is why I equate Tiger's 14 and Jack's 18 or even put Tiger's count above Jack's in value.  And if one of the current stars wins even 10 I would put them right up there as well.

If there's a continuum of improvement from the 60's to today then there was an improvement from the 60's to 70's. Yet Nicklaus fared okay in the 70's and even won in the 80's. He and Watson battled close for many Majors during that time.

Tom Watson nearly won a Major in 2009 at age 59 and continued to make cuts against this 'way better' field through last year. He aged better than most, but these recent years have hardly represented the best of his ballstriking years.

There's something different about a 'great player' capable of winning 5+ Majors relative to the field.in any era.