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

[turtleback]

6 hours ago, Dr. Manhattan said:

 

Crazy thing is men's golf has barely tapped the possible talent waiting in countries like China/India. At some point people have to acknowledge the reality that it's not a coincidence so many of the biggest winners on the PGA Tour were born before 1950. When you look at the list and see the birth years, it really puts Tiger's 79 wins and Phil's 43 wins into proper perspective.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_golfers_with_most_PGA_Tour_wins

It is unfortunate for Phil that his best years were overshadowed by a guy who would have overshadowed anyone.  The one hole in his resume is the lack of any ancillary honors.  No Players of the Year, no Vardons, never #1 in the OWGR.  But lots of wins when wins weren't easy to come by.  Phil was always one of the top 5 guys, sometimes top 2 or 3, but never the top guy for as long as a single season.  Yet IMO he is easily top 10 all-time and maybe top-5.

[iacas]

6 hours ago, turtleback said:

It is unfortunate for Phil that his best years were overshadowed by a guy who would have overshadowed anyone.  The one hole in his resume is the lack of any ancillary honors.  No Players of the Year, no Vardons, never #1 in the OWGR.  But lots of wins when wins weren't easy to come by.  Phil was always one of the top 5 guys, sometimes top 2 or 3, but never the top guy for as long as a single season.  Yet IMO he is easily top 10 all-time and maybe top-5.

In your opinion @turtleback is Jack closer to Phil or Tiger? Sounds like you might say Phil.

Jack didn’t win a ton of those same honors either.

But he had “longevity.”

[turtleback]

8 hours ago, iacas said:

In your opinion @turtleback is Jack closer to Phil or Tiger? Sounds like you might say Phil.

Jack didn’t win a ton of those same honors either.

But he had “longevity.”

Interesting, because as I was writing that I was wondering whether this would be a better thread if it was Phil v Jack for sgoat (second greatest).  Without giving it any deep thought, I'd say Jack and Phil are closer to each other than either is to Tiger.  Between Jack and Phil I'd still give Jack a decent edge, mainly because I can't remember him melting down in any big moments as Phil has, on occasion.  He might not have won every time but I can't recall him just blowing it.

[Wally Fairway]

Related to this Vardon Trophy thing that keeps getting mention - Jack led the tour in scoring average in 5 years (if I counted correctly), however he didn't meet the minimum rounds requirement for the Vardon. The minimum rounds used to be 80, it was changed to 60 in 1980 (along with using lowest adjusted scoring average and no withdrawals)

Although I'm not sure how relevant this is to the GOAT discussion, but here it is for a more complete discussion

Source documents:
For Jack - http://www.nicklaus.com/facts-and-figures/statistics/
For Vardon winners - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vardon_Trophy

 

Edited March 25, 2018 by Wally Fairway

[nevets88]

Read this WSJ piece below and thought of this thread. If China makes golf more accessible to the masses, that's a population of 1.4 billion you're drawing from. Who knows, one charismatic superstar breaks out, could spark a boom, we saw it with Woods.

Quote

“We can show the world the Chinese can play golf,” Li said, though people in the business of golf see much more than a point of pride in their ascent. They see the potential to awaken the sport’s sleeping giant.

For all its wealth, and a population of 1.4 billion, China has never particularly taken to golf. Mao Zedong banned the sport while leading China’s socialist transformation starting in 1949, viewing golf as too elitist. There was a course construction boom in the early 2000s, though that stalled in recent years amid government crackdowns on corruption, which made golf-playing by officials a taboo and on the overbuilding of golf courses, which was seen as wasteful.

The more Chinese golfers ingrain themselves in the upper echelon of the sport, the more hope golf executives see in a country where growth has been plodding and uneven at best.

“Given the expanding middle class in China and the number of people, if there is even a fraction of interest from there that compares to Japan or Korea, the future has a high potential,” said Ty Votaw, the PGA Tour’s head of global business affairs.

The Next Chinese Trade Advantage: Professional Golfers

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-next-chinese-trade-advantage-professional-golfers-1522332387https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-next-chinese-trade-advantage-professional-golfers-1522332387

 

[brocks]

On 3/25/2018 at 1:21 PM, Wally Fairway said:

Related to this Vardon Trophy thing that keeps getting mention - Jack led the tour in scoring average in 5 years (if I counted correctly), however he didn't meet the minimum rounds requirement for the Vardon. The minimum rounds used to be 80, it was changed to 60 in 1980 (along with using lowest adjusted scoring average and no withdrawals)

Although I'm not sure how relevant this is to the GOAT discussion, but here it is for a more complete discussion

Source documents:
For Jack - http://www.nicklaus.com/facts-and-figures/statistics/
For Vardon winners - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vardon_Trophy

 

Jack actually claims that he had the lowest scoring average 8 times on his website.  It's one of the very few things I can find to criticize about him.

I think Tiger is the GOAT, because he was more dominant for more years against deeper fields than Jack was.  But Jack was my favorite for over 30 years, and unlike Tiger, he very seldom put a foot wrong, on or off the course.  Awarding himself phony scoring titles is IMO an exception to that standard of conduct.

The PGA had rules for the Vardon, just like it had rules for what was considered an official win.  Jack didn't refuse to accept the official wins and money he got for team events, or events with just 20 players in the field.  The PGA rules were just fine by him in those cases.  But he claims scoring titles for years when he didn't meet the requirements for the scoring title.

To be fair, the PGA had some stupid rules back then.  Among other things, it required a pro to have "Class A" status before he was eligible for the Vardon Trophy, or the Ryder Cup, and that took at least four years on tour to achieve, plus such ridiculous things as taking classes in pro shop management, a throwback to the days when the PGA was mostly club pros.

Jack lost two Vardons early in his career because of those rules, and IMO that is a travesty.  Whenever I compare the year-end awards accumulated by Tiger vs Jack, I give Jack those two Vardons, because he played over 80 rounds those years.  (By the way, it is a common error for Jack fans to think that he was also shut out of the Player of the Year award during his first five years, but he wasn't.  A rookie could win POY if he got the votes, and in fact Jack finished second in the voting in 1963.)

But the other six virtual Vardons, from 1971-1976, were years when he did not play the required 80 rounds.  Jack fans will say that the minimum was changed to 60 rounds in 1988, and that's true.  They go on to say that therefore Jack would have won those six Vardons if the minimum had been 60 when he played.  That is not necessarily true.

First of all, I don't know how to check his figures.  The PGA website only goes back to 1980.   It's been several years since I stopped looking, but I tried in vain for over ten years to find a source that didn't derive from either Jack himself, or Mark McCormack, Jack's agent, for Jack's scoring averages during the 70's.  Wikipedia and other online sources, when they give a reference at all, almost always cite either Jack's website, or the Mark McCormack annual tour summaries from the 70's.

Second, assuming his figures are accurate, I don't know how to check that nobody else had a lower scoring average.  It's easy to verify that Jack had a lower scoring average than the Vardon Trophy winner, because those averages are published.  But that's just one guy.  What about the rest of the tour?  Since Jack is throwing out the 80-round minimum, how do we know there wasn't somebody else who only played 60 rounds, and had a lower average than Jack?

Third, and most important, how do we know that Arnie or Lee or Billy wouldn't have had a lower scoring average if they had only played 60 rounds?  It's a lot harder to maintain a low scoring average over 80 rounds than 60, even with other things being equal.  But other things most likely aren't equal if you're playing 80 rounds.  You're much more likely to be playing at times or places you don't really want to.  If you get to play only when you want and where you want, you're going to score better.

And as a bonus, Jack's limited schedule gave him a huge advantage in the majors.  Today, almost all the top players play practice rounds at the major venues before the week of the event.  In the 60's and 70's, Jack was one of a very few who had the time and money to scout the courses like that.  It gave him a big advantage over the field, most of whom might be seeing the course for the first time on the Monday of the tournament, because they had to get their 80 rounds in.

Palmer, Trevino, Casper, and Watson all won multiple Vardon Trophies with the 80-round minimum, so it clearly was not an unfair standard that was incompatible with elite golf.  It was entirely Jack's decision to play a limited schedule, and it benefited him in the majors.  He should take the good with the bad, and not pretend he won scoring titles when he was not playing by the same rules.  Claiming a scoring title for 60 rounds when the PGA minimum is 80 rounds, is like claiming victory when you lead after the third round of a tournament.  IMO it's beneath him, and I wish he would stop doing it, because in almost every other way, he has been exemplary.

[mvmac]

From this month's Golf Digest. WITB with Austin Cook, good example of how club pros were common in Jack's day.

[Vinsk]

7 hours ago, mvmac said:

From this month's Golf Digest. WITB with Austin Cook, good example of how club pros were common in Jack's day.

Yeah. Jack was great. But he got a good chunk of his Major wins by being good at a really advantageous time. To me it’s pretty clear Tiger 14 > Jack 18 because of that.

[ScouseJohnny]

On 5/18/2018 at 11:44 AM, turtleback said:

The bolded statement is not even close to being true.  I've said it before but I guess I have to say it again.  The year Gary Player won his first major it was a British Open in the late 50s, a time period when Americans completely dominated golf, there were only 4 Americans in the field and you never heard of any of them.  That year EVERY SINGLE PGA EVENT had a stronger field than the British Open.

It's interesting looking at the (London) Times for that era. The Open Championship in the 1950s was reported on as very much a parochial, British Championship. It's only post-Arnie's win that it started to garner serious coverage, rather than brief column inches.

It's hard to imagine how much bigger the world must have been seemed those days. The thought of a trans-Atlantic BOAC flight in a Bristol Britannia and resultant train or car journey across the UK (or even a connecting flight) is a world removed from telling the LearJet Captain to file a flight plan for Glasgow Prestwick. I guess this partly explains why the likes of Peter Thomson (based in Europe at the time) rarely bothered to make the trek to the US Open, and, conversely, Billy Casper didn't go to the British Open more than a handful of times (and, even then, only from the late '60s onwards).

I do agree with you re: the strength of the British Open's field in those days. But it did heat up very quickly after Arnie, once people like Nicklaus and Lema began to make the trip. And Thomson did hold his own against those great American players.

Edited May 22, 2018 by ScouseJohnny

[iacas]

https://nolayingup.com/2018/05/15/nlu-podcast-episode-141-paul-azinger/

Listen starting at 23:00.

Paul Azinger talks about how, in 1987, having won a few events earlier in the year, even he was considering NOT playing in the British Open until an older player told him he should go.

Today if you qualify, and your wife isn't giving birth or something, you pretty much go. As recently as 1987… top players were considering NOT playing because the British Open wasn't as relevant. Wasn't that important.

[ScouseJohnny]

20 minutes ago, iacas said:

https://nolayingup.com/2018/05/15/nlu-podcast-episode-141-paul-azinger/

Listen starting at 23:00.

Paul Azinger talks about how, in 1987, having won a few events earlier in the year, even he was considering NOT playing in the British Open until an older player told him he should go.

Today if you qualify, and your wife isn't giving birth or something, you pretty much go. As recently as 1987… top players were considering NOT playing because the British Open wasn't as relevant. Wasn't that important.

Maybe Nicklaus, Watson, Trevino, and Miller just couldn't resist rain and fish & chips.

[iacas]

1 hour ago, ScouseJohnny said:

Maybe Nicklaus, Watson, Trevino, and Miller just couldn't resist rain and fish & chips.

Beside the point.

[ScouseJohnny]

46 minutes ago, iacas said:

Beside the point.

Hey, Mr. Azinger is the primary source, so if he says he contemplated not bothering to make the trip in 1987, I'm sure that's how it was.

The odd thing is, many top American golfers of the day did go the British Open that year. Here is the field: https://www.pgatour.com/news/2013/06/21/1987--british-open-results.html

Looking at winners on the PGA Tour for earlier in 1987 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_PGA_Tour - Pavin, Stewart, Love III, Calcavecchia - they all made the trip to the British Open. It wasn't just middle-aged Jack and Lee having a stroll down memory lane.

Besides, those top American golfers weren't too fussed about teeing it up at the British Open against the likes of Seve in his prime? I find that hard to believe.

 

 

Edited May 22, 2018 by ScouseJohnny

[iacas]

6 hours ago, ScouseJohnny said:

Hey, Mr. Azinger is the primary source, so if he says he contemplated not bothering to make the trip in 1987, I'm sure that's how it was.

The odd thing is, many top American golfers of the day did go the British Open that year. Here is the field: https://www.pgatour.com/news/2013/06/21/1987--british-open-results.html

Looking at winners on the PGA Tour for earlier in 1987 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_PGA_Tour - Pavin, Stewart, Love III, Calcavecchia - they all made the trip to the British Open. It wasn't just middle-aged Jack and Lee having a stroll down memory lane.

Besides, those top American golfers weren't too fussed about teeing it up at the British Open against the likes of Seve in his prime? I find that hard to believe.

I don't feel as though you're following the conversation.

The point was that in even 1987, it wasn't automatic for a top player to play the British Open. In 1959, virtually no Americans (save for three or four who were seemingly vacationing in Europe at the time or something) played in it.

The British Open was easier to win in the 60s and 70s and even into the 80s for this reason - not even the top players THEN played in it. I remember players like Scott Hoch not playing in them, too. Now virtually everyone who qualifies and who isn't having a child imminently play in every major for which they qualify.

[Shorty]

38 minutes ago, iacas said:

I

The point was that in even 1987, it wasn't automatic for a top player to play the British Open. In 1959, virtually no Americans (save for three or four who were seemingly vacationing in Europe at the time or something) played in it.

The British Open was easier to win in the 60s and 70s and even into the 80s for this reason - not even the top players THEN played in it.

Which is why Peter Thomson's name NEVER comes up in conversations about all time greats, despite winning the Open 5 times and having 18 top 10s between 1951 and 1971.

In those days, winning The Open would possibly not cover traveling expenses for an American player. 

Edited May 23, 2018 by Shorty

[iacas]

1 minute ago, Shorty said:

Which is why Peter Thomson's name NEVER comes up in conversations about all time greats, despite winning the Open 5 times and having 18 top 10s between 1951 and 1971.

Precisely.

[ScouseJohnny]

I'll happily accept it wasn't "automatic" in 1987, and I readily acknowledge that but for Arnold Palmer the British Open would be about as relevant today as the British Masters. The point about Gary Player's win in 1959 is not in dispute.

By 1987 though, things had changed somewhat. OK, we'll agree it still wasn't "automatic" for a top player, especially a non-European player, to make the trip.

Who were the top of the pile in 1987?

OWGR rankings for 07/05/1987: http://dps.endavadigital.net/owgr/doc/content/archive/1987/owgr27f1987.pdf

Excluding European players, the top 20 included (in order):

Norman (1), Nakajima, Stewart, Strange, Wadkins, Aoki, Mize, Simpson, Ozaki, Crenshaw, Tway, Davis, McNulty, Pavin, Sutton, Kite (19).

Apart from Aoki, they all dutifully showed up at Muirfield on 07/16/1987.

 

 

Edited May 23, 2018 by ScouseJohnny

[iacas]

1 hour ago, ScouseJohnny said:

OK, we'll agree it still wasn't "automatic" for a top player

That's all I'd said.