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

[woodzie264]

@iacas, that guy is an idiot. You can’t fix stupid

[iacas]

5 hours ago, Wally Fairway said:

Erik,
I give you a lot of credit for being willing to fight the good fight; although it is an odd torch to carry.

What's so "odd" about it?

5 hours ago, Wally Fairway said:

I'm also curious if you are out there trying to convert those in the flat earth society?

Recently, some guy on Twitter. Not too hard to find if you look back at my tweets last week. 🙂

That guy looooooooved the Bleacher Report article.

[AaronVA83]

On 2/2/2018 at 9:50 AM, Jack Watson said:

@mvmac

Here’s some numbers.  Won’t be posting about field strength again.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1687496-the-myth-of-deeper-pga-tour-fields-during-tiger-woods-era

Wow this is the dumbest article I think I have ever read.  What they are not picking up on is that the best players in the game did not get together but 4 times a year back then (and even then, many Americans didn't go to the Open).  During Tiger's era, it was 8 with the Players & WGC events, and then more with the playoff events.  On top of that, because of the money brought in, best players from all over the world bought houses in the US and played on TOUR on a consistent and regular basis compared to Jack's era.  The article has been written with such a bias it's quite transparent and citing such an article only displays the bias if the individual citing it as well

[turtleback]

7 hours ago, AaronVA83 said:

Wow this is the dumbest article I think I have ever read.  What they are not picking up on is that the best players in the game did not get together but 4 times a year back then (and even then, many Americans didn't go to the Open).  During Tiger's era, it was 8 with the Players & WGC events, and then more with the playoff events.  On top of that, because of the money brought in, best players from all over the world bought houses in the US and played on TOUR on a consistent and regular basis compared to Jack's era.  The article has been written with such a bias it's quite transparent and citing such an article only displays the bias if the individual citing it as well

Until the 90s or so there were virtually no tournaments, major or otherwise, in which substantially all of the world´s best players were entered.

[saevel25]

7 minutes ago, turtleback said:

Until the 90s or so there were virtually no tournaments, major or otherwise, in which substantially all of the world´s best players were entered.

Look at it this way. Nick Faldo, only has 9 PGA Tour wins. 6 of them are majors. He has 30 European wins. He would come over for what looked like 12-16 events a year, but there are about good number of years he would only come over for 6 or 7 events. 

[csh19792001]

On 10/7/2021 at 3:22 PM, turtleback said:

Until the 90s or so there were virtually no tournaments, major or otherwise, in which substantially all of the world´s best players were entered.

Field Strength -- Facts Versus Rosy Memories - Tour Talk - GolfWRX

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I have to laugh at the chumps who show up with arguments that today's golfers by definition are the best ever. Right, except nobody says that. We don't say the golfers are more talented today. We say there are more...

Not sure if this guy "Brock Savage" is a member here- since I'm never on here- nonetheless, I thought this was an extremely insightful comment directly apropos of this ongoing debate/discussion:

"Right, except nobody says that. We don't say the golfers are more talented today. We say there are more talented golfers today. "More" meaning they are more numerous, not more talented.

Talent is random. Only a small percentage of people win the talent lottery --- for world class golf, way less than 1%. And there's no telling whether the most talented player of any period, including this one, was more talented than Jack, or Jones, or Vardon. It's absolutely unknowable.

What is knowable, though, is that the base population is larger, so whatever percentage of people are born with golf talent, there are a lot more of them today than there were 50 years ago.

What is knowable is that training and coaching is vastly improved. Hogan had to dig his swing out of the dirt. Today, they have radar and laser and the Minolta super duper high speed swing cam, and they know exactly how every little swing tweak affects their spin rate and launch angle and apex height -- stuff nobody had any clue about in Jack's day. So 50 years ago, if you had 100 guys born with golf talent take up golf, maybe 30 of them would find their optimal swing. Today, it's probably over 90.

What is knowable is that the huge purses, and the fact that Tiger was the world's richest and most famous athlete, and not just the world #1 golfer, is making golf the first choice of more young athletes, rather than just the guys who couldn't make the "real" sports teams in school. So if you had 100 guys born with multi-sport talent 50 years ago, most of them played golf for fun, if at all. Today, a lot more of them concentrate on golf as their main sport.

And what is knowable is that travel is much faster and cheaper now, so almost every world class player shows up for almost every major and WGC, and for many of the regular PGA events. 50 years ago, the second or third best player in, say, Australia, often didn't even play in the British Open, let alone a PGA event. So all the PGA events, and three of the four majors, had only a handful of international players, and the fourth major had only a handful of Americans.

None of that is speculation. It is a verifiable fact that there are over twice as many people in the world today than there were 50 years ago. It's a verifiable fact that the purses today are hundreds of times as high as they were 50 years ago --- Tony Lema got about $4200 for winning the 1964 Open; today, it's about $1.5 million. It's a verifiable fact that virtually all the world top 100 play every major they are eligible for, instead of only a handful playing any events that require overseas travel.

It's not knowable exactly how all of that combines, but a good indication is the number of entries in the US Open. To enter the US Open requires both top 1% talent for the game, and a serious commitment to it. There were about 2400 entrants per year 50 years ago. This century, it's consistently over 9000, well over three times as many. It's true that, mostly because of the time and expense, the number of duffers recreational players has declined, but they never had any influence on field strength, anyway. High school kids on the golf team still play all they want, for free.

What do you have to counter that? Nothing but your belief that there were half a dozen golf phenoms all at the same time in the 60's, and none today, now that Tiger's past his prime. You're entitled to that opinion, but what facts do you have to back it up? Only the number of majors they won. But how many majors would Phil have won if the fields were like they were 50 years ago?

Phil finished second in the US Open to Goosen in 2004, to Ogilvy in 2006, and to Rose last year. 50 years ago, odds are that none of those guys would have even tried to qualify for the US Open, since it required shutting down their schedule for a minimum of three weeks to travel to the US for sectional qualifying, with no guarantee that they would make it into the actual tournament. Michael Campbell, who beat Tiger with some amazing putting down the stretch in 2005, said that he would not have entered that year if the USGA hadn't established overseas qualifying sites, so he didn't have to travel to enter.

How would Phil look next to Arnie with those three US Opens? Eight majors, and a career Grand Slam.

And how would Tiger look if Michael Campbell, Trevor Immelman, Angel Cabrera, and YA Yang had stayed home, like most international players did in the Jack era?

I'll make it even simpler for you, since you follow women's golf. How much better would the US women look today, if there were no Asians on tour? Or even just no Koreans?

Well, it looks like you're going to crow about the lack of current talent every time a guy backs into a win for the foreseeable future, but come on. The Valero was a 40-point tournament, which makes it one of the weakest regular PGA events, barely above the John Deere. And the tournament committee knows that most top players don't like to play right before a major, so they try to attract the few who do by making it as close to major conditions as possible, to help them fine tune their games. A weak field facing a tough setup is not a recipe for low scores, but you still insist on taking one bad week and comparing it to the majors of your hazy memory, even though you seem to have forgotten epic collapses by the likes of Arnie, who managed to lose a seven shot lead over the last 9 holes of the 1966 US Open. And who knows how often something like that happened in a low-rent event?

I don't know if Tiger was more talented than Jack, or even Trevino. All I know is that there are many solid reasons to believe that in order to win a tournament, he had to beat around three times as many talented golfers, even in most of the regular tour events he's won, as Jack did in a major --- especially the Open, where Jack only had to beat as few as 8 other Americans, at a time when probably 60-70 of the world top 100 were Americans. I don't say it's true by definition, as you claimed, but I say it's the way to bet, based on facts and logic."

[csh19792001]

On 9/15/2021 at 2:58 PM, iacas said:

Tiger's Fields >>>>>> Jack's fields.

How many Majors were won 1960-1980 by non Americans? 

Total Count: 

Gary Player (South Africa): 7 wins
Kel Nagle (Australia): 1 win
Bob Charles (New Zealand): 1 win
Peter Thomson (Australia): 1 win
Roberto De Vicenzo (Argentina): 1 win
Tony Jacklin (England): 2 wins
Seve Ballesteros (Spain): 2 wins
David Graham (Australia): 1 win

Total Non-U.S. Major Championships: 16

Between 1960 and 1980, non-U.S. players won 16 major championships.

How about Majors won by non Americans 1997-2017?

Total Count: 

Ernie Els (South Africa): 4 wins
Vijay Singh (Fiji): 3 wins
José María Olazábal (Spain): 1 win
Paul Lawrie (Scotland): 1 win
Retief Goosen (South Africa): 2 wins
Mike Weir (Canada): 1 win
Michael Campbell (New Zealand): 1 win
Geoff Ogilvy (Australia): 1 win
Ángel Cabrera (Argentina): 2 wins
Padraig Harrington (Ireland): 3 wins
Trevor Immelman (South Africa): 1 win
Y. E. Yang (South Korea): 1 win
Graeme McDowell (Northern Ireland): 1 win
Louis Oosthuizen (South Africa): 1 win
Martin Kaymer (Germany): 2 wins
Rory McIlroy (Northern Ireland): 4 wins
Charl Schwartzel (South Africa): 1 win
Darren Clarke (Northern Ireland): 1 win
Adam Scott (Australia): 1 win
Justin Rose (England): 1 win
Jason Day (Australia): 1 win
Danny Willett (England): 1 win
Henrik Stenson (Sweden): 1 win
Sergio García (Spain): 1 win

Total Non-U.S. Major Championships: 33

Between 1997 and 2017, non-U.S. players won 33 major championships.

On 7/12/2020 at 11:18 PM, iacas said:

Brandel has gone so back and forth on this thing himself it's annoying.

 

Edited August 31 by csh19792001

[iacas]

@csh19792001, we have addressed this about 100 times already.

When 10 good players are playing against a field of part time tour players and club pros, they’re going to win a lot more majors.

When fields are stronger and deeper, with 100 really good players, the majors are spread out.

Jack didn’t face very many good players, including players from outside the U.S. or the UK.

I honestly don’t even know which side your post supports but either way I don’t think counting majors says a whole lot.

[csh19792001]

On 8/31/2024 at 3:04 PM, iacas said:

@csh19792001, we have addressed this about 100 times already.

When 10 good players are playing against a field of part time tour players and club pros, they’re going to win a lot more majors.

When fields are stronger and deeper, with 100 really good players, the majors are spread out.

Jack didn’t face very many good players, including players from outside the U.S. or the UK.

I honestly don’t even know which side your post supports but either way I don’t think counting majors says a whole lot.

I support your side, Iacas. 100%. Tiger had a better career than Jack, and was far better at his best. Field strengths are drastically better in the 21st century versus pre 1980's, and LIGHT years ahead of when Hogan played. 

Nobody in this thread listed non American Major Winners during Jack and Tiger's entire primes. I thought people would find that interesting and that it would be revealing, in a comparative sense.

[csh19792001]

On 11/22/2020 at 7:43 PM, iacas said:

I have now had this conversation with another person on another forum.

 

On 11/22/2020 at 7:43 PM, iacas said:

P.S. Here's a full-size link to the conversation: https://p197.p4.n0.cdn.getcloudapp.com/items/eDuwk5RY/conversation.jpg?v=091ffa1f177b2801866b7e32f2f14126. I forgot TST would resize the image to fit within a boundary.

This is one of the greatest posts I've ever seen in my life on sports message boards like this!! Bravo, Sir!! 👏