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

[ghalfaire]

10 hours ago, JonMA1 said:

It's not that ass-backward even if it isn't entirely on-topic. Did you read the rest of his post? The part where he acknowledges that Tiger was the best golfer by a wide margin?

I don't know that what's he saying is true and even if so, I wouldn't agree Jack's achievements were better. But I think he's saying that Tiger was so good that he destroyed even the better competition. While Jack, against lesser competition, had to grind to pull out the victories.

Thanks @JonMA1 I appreciate that you read and understand what I wrote.  You know when we talk about depth of field I have to wonder just how many competitors did Jack and Tiger really had to worry about.  In Jack's case there were probably a 5 - 10 guys that had the potential to beat when Jack was not on his "A" game.  But in Tiger's case I don't know of a single competitor that could beat him even when only had his B game.  Tiger, for years, really didn't have much competition, regardless of how good the rest of the field was they were near as good as Tiger.  For heaven's sake in the 2008 he beat Rocco Mediate on a broken leg.   How good it that?  If you can do that you're not just better than the competition, you're a lot better and basically don't have any competition.

So now I really am finished on this topic.  But thanks for being civil even though you disagree.

[saevel25]

Tiger probably had to worry about 2-4x as many golfers every week. 

Your arguement is just misconstrueding what everyone knows depth of competition really is.  

[iacas]

1 hour ago, ghalfaire said:

Thanks @JonMA1 I appreciate that you read and understand what I wrote.

🤦🏼‍♂️,  @ghalfaire.

I too read and understood what you said - but what you said makes absolutely no sense, for reasons I've shared. Meanwhile, I'm still not sure you've read my posts, including the post where I put forth a definition of both strength and depth of field.

1 hour ago, ghalfaire said:

You know when we talk about depth of field I have to wonder just how many competitors did Jack and Tiger really had to worry about.

Jack didn't have to worry about very many. Not many were capable of winning events back then. Tiger has to worry about nearly everyone in the field - they're almost all capable of winning the event. Tiger's number is likely a multiple of Jack's number.

1 hour ago, ghalfaire said:

In Jack's case there were probably a 5 - 10 guys that had the potential to beat when Jack was not on his "A" game.  But in Tiger's case I don't know of a single competitor that could beat him even when only had his B game.

That's a backwards way of looking at it. It literally punishes Tiger (by "weakening" the fields against which he played) for being a better golfer, a more dominant golfer.

This is an incredibly stupid way to consider strength and depth of field.

The topic here isn't how much better Tiger was than the fields, or Jack; the topic here is how much better the fields were in Tiger's era than they were in Jack's era. Jack and Tiger are, effectively, removed from the consideration/discussion.

[ghalfaire]

25 minutes ago, iacas said:

🤦🏼‍♂️,  @ghalfaire.

 

This is an incredibly stupid way to consider strength and depth of field.

The topic here isn't how much better Tiger was than the fields, or Jack; the topic here is how much better the fields were in Tiger's era than they were in Jack's era. Jack and Tiger are, effectively, removed from the consideration/discussion.

@iacas I thought I had said some time back that the professional golfers of today's PGA were better than those of the 1960's PGA and if that defines depth of field then today's field is deeper.  I just don't conclude from that fact that Tiger's 14/17 is a greater personal achievement than Jack's 18/20.  This question  was the poll in the OP's post and I thought that was part of the discussion too.  If that isn't the case, I am not sure why so many posts deal Tiger and Jack's majors wins.

[iacas]

1 minute ago, ghalfaire said:

I just don't conclude from that fact that Tiger's 14/17 is a greater personal achievement than Jack's 18/20.

The problem isn't that you don't conclude 14x > 18y. The problems are that:

• You don't seem to have read the posts I've made in direct response to your posts.
• You don't seem to have read the recent posts in this discussion or know what has already been covered.
• You don't seem to understand that you have things almost backwards in your last post(s) about the strength and depth of field, because you're including the top golfer in each era in that discussion.

Those are the main problems I have with the posts you've made. And, to be clear, the bigger problem is the last one. That's a method of looking at the strength of field that makes no sense. It punishes Tiger for being more dominant, over far stronger fields.

3 minutes ago, ghalfaire said:

This question  was the poll in the OP's post and I thought that was part of the discussion too.

You're still not getting it.

If you want to put numbers to it, I've done that repeatedly in the past. And @turtleback has hinted at it, and my parabolic curve graph earlier hinted at it further.

You're getting lost and turned around (completely backwards) in this strength/depth of field post. I've not seen you reply to or even reference the definitions I put out there a page or two ago. You're off in the weeds somewhere talking about how easy it was for Tiger to win or something. That's backwards. That says more about how good Tiger was, not how good the fields were.

[JonMA1]

2 hours ago, ghalfaire said:

But thanks for being civil even though you disagree.

No problem @ghalfaire. I thought it was an interesting take.

[ghalfaire]

@iacas OK I did read and re-read the post I believe you are referring to and I'll try to address all that you said there.

On ‎6‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 10:47 AM, iacas said:

On ‎6‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 8:05 AM, ghalfaire said:

When the OP posted to begin this Thread, he said this was not a Jack Vs Tiger discussion, but rather a discussion of the "depth of field" in the Jack and Tiger eras.  However, he did also post that he felt the results would show Tiger played against more skilled competition and was better than Jack. But I would have thought such a post begs the question, what is depth/strength of field and how do you measure it?

There's not really a super objective way to measure it, because over the years too many things have changed. Even the weather changes at a tournament course from year to year.

That doesn't mean that there aren't objective measures. The field strength in the 1959 British Open was considerably weaker than it is these days.

Also, a much larger percentage of golfers were PGA Tour regulars back then, and a comparatively much smaller percentage are now.

I concur there isn't a very good/objective way to compare the performances of Jack and Tiger.  I assume this first Two sentences were about comparing Jack and Tiger, not in determining strength or depth of field as in the third sentence you state that doesn't mean there are not objective measures.  I assume this is in reference to depth of field.  If so, then I would concur that there probably are objective measures of field strength/depth of field.  I am not sure the last sentence about  the make up of the tour is relevant to depth of field.  If the measure is to be objective is should be based on the field's performance.  I would think that measure would be how well the field scored over a season and who was there wouldn't be relevant.

On ‎6‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 10:47 AM, iacas said:

lso, a much larger percentage of golfers were PGA Tour regulars back then, and a comparatively much smaller percentage are now. 

On ‎6‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 8:05 AM, ghalfaire said:

But, in my mind, that has little to do with whether Jack’s 18 (20 if you prefer) was a more significant achievement, or not, than Tiger’s 14/17 major wins. As I said earlier you can only beat the guys that show up and or lose to them as the case might be.

I still don't feel as though you've read my posts. I feel like I addressed this.

The weaker fields BEAT Jack far more often than he beat them, and given the dozens of majors in which both have played, we can use their wins and losses to evaluate players.

Again, if Jack played against a bunch of ten year olds, and won 18 times, but lost 62 other times, you'd have to conclude that he was likely much worse of a golfer than a guy who beat grown adult men 10 times but lost 70, wouldn't you?

I did read them.  I, from a math point of view, do understand our equation of 14x<>18y where x and y are relative strength of fields for Tiger & Jack eras respectively.  But I am more in agreement that you can't really compare players who were in there prime 30-40 years apart.  While I agree with your last hypothetical, I don't agree that is a fair assessment of Jack Vs Tiger.  Since Jack had a significantly longer career (maybe anyway but am glad to see Tiger back and doing well) he played well past his prime.  Maybe we should compare Jack's first 15 years on tour with Tiger's first 15 years.  Might be a little more fair, don't you think?

On ‎6‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 10:47 AM, iacas said:

On ‎6‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 8:05 AM, ghalfaire said:

For lot of reason that have been stated several times, today’s professional golfers are just better than professional golfers in the mid/late 20^th century. Just so I am consistent with my own principal, to me better means today’s #10 would beat the #10 from the 60’s more times than not. It doesn’t mean that being #10 today is a more or less difficult achievement than in the 60s.

I believe that it does.

It was easier to be in the top 125, the top 50, the top 10, and the top 1 back then.

I think you're saying that because both were #1 for a long stretch of time, it's tough to gauge how far apart from #2 they were… but yet that fails for two reasons, one of which I've talked about several times now:

• They didn't always win. This isn't a case of trying to figure out how great Secretariat was. Jack lost a lot of golf tournaments. He lost to the ten-year-olds a lot (just an example). This isn't a case of Jack going 80-0 against really really weak fields of ten-year-olds and us not being able to put that into any context. Jack lost to the ten-year-olds often. Far more often than "he could only beat the field who was there." He lost to the field that was there a lot.
• Tiger's separation from #2 could be measured… using the OWGR. Heck, at one point, Tiger could have split his points among two people and been #1 and #2 in the OWGR. Now, I'm not saying the OWGR is perfect… but it is a form of measurement, and I imagine someone could keep going back in history and figure out the OWGR for Jack all those years if they wanted to. (Then again, there were many, many years when Jack wasn't the #1 player that year, so those who support Jack as GOAT may not wish to do that.)

At any rate, you can't keep going with the "they could only beat who showed up" because they LOST quite often to those same guys.

So again, if you go 18-62 against a field that averages 290 grade points, are you better or worse than a guy who goes 14-66 against a field that averages 500 grade points. I'd argue that you're worse. That 14x > 18y.

Not sure whether it  is important or not but I didn't say it wasn't easier to be #10 in the 60s,  what I said was that just because today's #10 was a better golfer than the #10 in the 60s doesn't mean that it wasn't just as difficult to be #10 in the 60s as today.  I stand by that statement as I believe the major reasons golfers are better today is because of better equipment, better training methods training equipment, better courses, more convenient transportation, etc.  Humans don't evolve that fast but technology does and it has all moved in the directions of making golf easier, not more difficult.

I believe I have already addressed the 10 year old thing as Jack had a much longer career than Tiger has had yet.  

As to the coefficients (x and y you called them) you suggest can be derived from depth of field data, I just have to believe that there is a lot more than just depth of field required to compare to individual performances.  I is certainly part of the relevant data, but not sure it is the only or even most significant factor.  Somewhere along the line you have to  consider how good would Tiger have been if he was born in 1940 instead of 1975 and of course how good would jack have been if was born in 1975 instead of 1940.  Since we agree that over the PGA population the changes have made the tour's performance better, we don't know what influence it has on single individuals, nor can we really assess that.

On ‎6‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 10:47 AM, iacas said:

On ‎6‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 8:05 AM, ghalfaire said:

Whatever depth of field means it has to somehow address how difficult was/it is to win a given tournament.

Again, the flaws here are that any percentage is going to add up to 100%, and if Jack plays against weaker fields, he's going to be a higher percentage, yet while a BETTER player against STRONGER fields might be a lower percentage.

In other words, let's say that Jack has a 15% chance to win against a field of ten-year-olds, but Tiger has a 10% chance to win against a field of grown men. Which one is the better golfer? I think the answer here is obvious.

But, again, winning is just ONE position, and there's only one tournament to win.

This sums up my general idea re: strength and depth of field.

People have ranges of abilities. Some weeks and months Jack didn't play well, and other months he played better than his average. He was still always an "A" player. But he had far fewer "A" players against which to play, and a lot of "C" or "D" players. Those increase his chances of winning.

#125 in the field right now might have about the same chance of winning as #125 back in Jack's day (roughly 0%, though back in Jack's day it was actually 0%, and today it's probably more like 0.3%)… but yet #125 today would kick the snot out of #125 back then, because #125 back then was probably not even a full-time professional golfer. #125 in the field back then may have been @Phil McGleno.

Well I don't quite know how to address this section.  I agree that such charts would be necessary to evaluate the coefficients of your equation.  If those data are available such graphs could be produced.  If someone were ambitious enough and had access to those data, these exact curves could be produced and would likely answer a lot of questions about how much better the tour scoring was in 1997 Vs 1962 or any other year or sets of years we chose.  however if you now made two curve of tiger/Jack respectively and compared them to the tour they played I would expect if what I said that Tiger was much better than his tour's average it true, the difference between Tiger's average score and the 1997 tour's average score to be grater than the same calculation for Jack.  But without the data, we're just talking over a beer here and neither one of us really knows. 

On ‎6‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 10:47 AM, iacas said:

On ‎6‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 8:05 AM, ghalfaire said:

If I were King of TheSandTrap.com, I’m not IACAS is, I would define depth of field as follows:

Did you miss the post where I put forward a definition of both depth and strength?

On ‎6‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 8:05 AM, ghalfaire said:

1.      Obtain/calculate the probability of win for each competitor in a given tournament

I spoke to this. It's a dumb way to go because there's only one event, so they're always going to add up to 100%, and yet given the example above re: Jack at 15% and Tiger at 10% playing against vastly different fields… it just doesn't work.

The percentage stuff doesn't cut it. It doesn't work. Because it's based only on the fields at the time - it doesn't compare at all the fields from 1970 against the fields from 2000 or whatever.

I didn't miss the post I was just suggesting a different calculation on what  I felt might be a better measure.  I can see you don't agree but that's OK with me and I can see merit in either approach and problems with either approach.

You're correct you would have to do this one tournament at a time.  But there are mathematical methods to combine these data into single curves that could be produced to represent performance over an entire season.  Lot of work but could be done.

OK I hope this satisfies you that I did read and think about what you had said.  I tried to summarize in my later posts but see I was not successful.  Probably my fault as I am not the world's best communicator.  The bottom line for me on all this is we probably can find and calculate a depth of field for the tour over the years.   But as much as I'd like to find a way to objectively compare individual performances of all the great golfers over the years, I just see it as an impossible task. It seem impossible to me because you always get back to the question of how good would Bobby Jones be if he were born in 1997 and there just doesn't seem to be a way to answer that.  Thanks for listening.  It's late, I'm tired, if you find grammar or other errors, forgive me I'm an old man in need of rest.

Ghalfaire

 

Edited June 7, 2018 by ghalfaire

[iacas]

So, @ghalfaire, I read your last post, and can summarize my objections to it as follows:

• Scoring average is a horrible way to determine strength/depth of field. If you don't understand why… then I don't know what to tell you. It seems pretty obvious to me. Jessica Korda has a scoring average of 69.485; is she better than a PGA Tour player with a higher scoring average? No. You're not comparing like things.
• Sometimes you can look at things - like the field in the 1959 British Open - and know quite easily that the strength and depth of field was weaker. Jack played against local club pros. There was no Web.com Tour back then. Common sense should be more common.
• The makeup of the Tour IS the field. The makeup of the Tour is exactly what matters here.
• This topic isn't about comparing Jack and Tiger. It's about comparing the people they played against.
• It's much tougher to be #10 nowadays than it was in 1960. Much tougher. Why? See the graph below.
• Golfers are not better today because of equipment - they're better because they're the top 150 out of many multiples more golfers than were around in 1960.
• You missed the point of the "ten-year-olds" thing because you were too caught up in trying to talk about how "easy" or "hard" it was for Tiger or Jack to win an event, a way of thinking that simply punishes a more dominant golfer by making the field look weaker; but they're only weaker against the stronger competitor (Tiger). This is a backwards way of looking at things.
• I couldn't care less what year golfers were born, and I don't think you have to consider what Jack would have been like had he been born in 1975. But I can tell you this - I don't think he sniffs 18 majors or 72 PGA Tour wins… because of exactly the topic of this thread: the strength and depth of field is greater now than when he played.

Here's the graph:

It's out of context here, but still…

31 minutes ago, ghalfaire said:

OK I hope this satisfies you that I did read and think about what you had said.

I think you've now read what I wrote, but I don't think you understand it at all. You don't seem to understand what that simple graph above represents, or what @turtleback has said, or why scoring averages are bad, or why you can't consider Jack or Tiger when considering the "field," etc.

@ghalfaire, do you understand what that graph shows? Do you understand how it illustrates that the fields Jack faced were markedly weaker/shallower than the fields Tiger faced?

---

I'll try it another way. Consider that if a student is in the top 25 of his graduating class in college, he earns a special distinction.

One year, Student J graduates with 100 others and finishes #15. Student T graduates from an identical program at a different college with 2,000 graduates and finishes #25. Other than the number of graduates and where they finished, the programs were essentially the same.

Which one achieved a higher level?

In other words, unless human beings somehow got "less athletic" or something… mathematically, you can show that the strength and depth of field is higher in the 00s than in the 60s. There are still only maybe ~150 spots available on the PGA Tour… and yet there are a hell of a lot more people competing for those spots.

[ghalfaire]

@iacas I decided I'd start a new post here on this subject and try to address this conversation as I see it

First I can't imaging trying to measure the strength of field with out using the fields' scores.  I searched for @turtleback post on why scores are not a good measure of performance of PGA tour scoring.  If you want me to read it you'll have to post a link.  I have to say however, while I am willing to learn, I just can't see how you can measure "scoring potential" without using actual scoring data. But if you send me the link I'll read it and comment.  An aside, Jessica Korda isn't a member of the PGA so I certainly understand her scoring isn't relevant to PGA scoring.  I almost find it insulting that you believe I know so little about how to select a sample to show some spread of a specific attribute across a specific population.

Second: yes I do understand the "big city Vs Small city" concept and that is the one reason I said earlier today's #10 is probably better than yesterday's #10.  But do you understand that is a statement of likelihood, not an absolute.  

Third: you ask if I understand the curves you presented.  Well I am not sure if you're asking if I understand Statistics and Probability theory (they are different things) or if I understand the specific curves. As to the former question, yes I do understand both statistics and Probability.  I have two advanced degrees in Engineering and will venture I understand these subjects better than you do.  As to the latter question, I do understand the implications of the curves your posted.  Having said that you don't  quantified the abscissa or ordinate.  That makes it difficult to know if these are real curves based on some actual empirical data or if they  were just drawn up to support what you believe real curves would look like.  Until the curves are quantified there isn't really any specific conclusions that can be drawn for them. I assume  the ordinate was score and the abscissa probability of that score.  So the curve is a little confusing as convention is to use the abscissa for the independent variable and ordinate for  the dependent variable.  But once I figured out you had reversed that convention I understood the curves' implications.   But, again, without real data it is difficult to comment other that to say they about like I'd expect but certainly don't lend themselves to any quantitative analyses.  

I guess that's it for now other than I'd like to read what @turtleback had to say on using scores as an attribute for assessing tour performance.

 

Edited June 7, 2018 by ghalfaire
make more understandable

[iacas]

5 minutes ago, ghalfaire said:

@iacas I decided I'd start a new post here on this subject and try to address this conversation as I see it

First I can't imaging trying to measure the strength of field with out using the fields' scores.

Well then that's your problem, and your entire line of reasoning falls into the "non-starter" bucket for me.

You're not comparing - at all - like to like.

5 minutes ago, ghalfaire said:

I searched for @turtleback post on why scores are not a good measure of performance of PGA tour scoring.

I never said he posted about scores. Why would he have? He knows like I do that you can't use scores to compare the strength and depth of fields of tournaments and golfers 30-50 years apart.

5 minutes ago, ghalfaire said:

An aside, Jessica Korda isn't a member of the PGA so I certainly understand her scoring isn't relevant to PGA scoring.

Her scoring average is as relevant as scores from the 1960s.

5 minutes ago, ghalfaire said:

Second: yes I do understand the "big city Vs Small city" concept and that is the one reason I said earlier today's #10 is probably better than yesterday's #10.  But do you understand that is a statement of likelihood, not an absolute.  

It's way, way beyond a "likelihood."

5 minutes ago, ghalfaire said:

I have two advanced degrees in Engineering and will venture I understand these subjects better than you do.

Possibly, but I don't think you're demonstrating that knowledge here, particularly the way you've phrased some of these things. Also, you're arguing with @turtleback and me, and between us, we have (at least) three degrees in math and the sciences.

I've also talked with PhD's in the field (Mark Broadie is one of them), specifically in re: statistics, etc. So I feel my platform is on pretty firm footing.

5 minutes ago, ghalfaire said:

Having said that you don't  quantified the abscissa or ordinate.

Of course not. Read the post where I first introduced it.

5 minutes ago, ghalfaire said:

That makes it difficult to know if these are real curves based on some actual empirical data or if they  were just drawn up to support what you believe real curves would look like.

Are there more golfers now than in 1910? Are there more incentives for those golfers to get better than in 1910? Or 1960?

There's data out there. I didn't feel like looking it up because it's that freaking obvious that the curve would somewhat resemble what I drew. Golf in the 50s and 60s was nowhere near as popular as it is now, or even in the 2000s, in the United States let alone globally.

5 minutes ago, ghalfaire said:

I assume  the ordinate was score and the abscissa probability of that score.

I'm not sure you're talking about the same graph anymore. I posted two. The colored one is much more of an estimate than the black and white one.

5 minutes ago, ghalfaire said:

I guess that's it for now other than I'd like to read what @turtleback had to say on using scores as an attribute for assessing tour performance.

I'm not going to speak for him, but I think he'd find using scores or scoring averages as pointless as I do. You're not comparing apples to apples.

 

[Ty_Webb]

34 minutes ago, ghalfaire said:

Second: yes I do understand the "big city Vs Small city" concept and that is the one reason I said earlier today's #10 is probably better than yesterday's #10.  But do you understand that is a statement of likelihood, not an absolute.  

If you have two clubs. One (A) has 900 players and one (B) has 100 players. Put all 1,000 of them together and have them play for a few years. The chances that the best player comes from club A is 90% and from club B is 10%. The chances that the 10th best player from B is better than the 10th best player from A is very very small indeed. The chances that the 100th best player from B is better than the 100th best player from A is smaller than the chances of pretty much anything that has ever actually happened. I think this is smaller than 200 C 100 / 1000 C 100 (this is the probability that all of B falls in the top 200, which is a requirement . That's close enough to zero to be impossible. It's more likely that I'll win the US Open next week and I'm not even playing.

 

[turtleback]

3 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

If you have two clubs. One (A) has 900 players and one (B) has 100 players. Put all 1,000 of them together and have them play for a few years. The chances that the best player comes from club A is 90% and from club B is 10%. The chances that the 10th best player from B is better than the 10th best player from A is very very small indeed. The chances that the 100th best player from B is better than the 100th best player from A is smaller than the chances of pretty much anything that has ever actually happened. I think this is smaller than 200 C 100 / 1000 C 100 (this is the probability that all of B falls in the top 200, which is a requirement . That's close enough to zero to be impossible. It's more likely that I'll win the US Open next week and I'm not even playing.

 

They made the movie Hoosiers because it was so extraordinarily unlikely that the sample from the small group beats out the sample from the much larger group.  But hey, maybe they are right and just such a rare occurrence happened year after year in golf during the parallel periods of Jack's career and Tiger's.  {shrug}

[ghalfaire]

17 minutes ago, turtleback said:

They made the movie Hoosiers because it was so extraordinarily unlikely that the sample from the small group beats out the sample from the much larger group.  But hey, maybe they are right and just such a rare occurrence happened year after year in golf during the parallel periods of Jack's career and Tiger's.  {shrug}

Because you two commented I'll comment back.  But this is my absolute last post on the thread as I am only making folks angry and not accomplishing anything else.  @Ty_Webb You said exactly what I said, you just used a story (example) and a few more words than I did.  @turtlebackyou also said what I said, only differently.  All I've been saying is, it is likely because of the greater supply of people there more good golfers on the PGA tour today, i.e. the tour is stronger today.  But when you state this as a fact you ought to prove it so because, while likely, it isn't necessarily so.  Sports history is fraught with very low probably events that actually happened.

[iacas]

7 minutes ago, ghalfaire said:

Because you two commented I'll comment back.  But this is my absolute last post on the thread as I am only making folks angry and not accomplishing anything else.

I don't think anyone is angry.

Man, this is just golf. And it's just an opinion.

I'm anything but angry. A bit frustrated, maybe, but nowhere near angry. Christ, this shit doesn't matter at all in the grand scheme of things.

I won't speak for @turtleback either but I'd be hella surprised if he's at all "angry."

7 minutes ago, ghalfaire said:

Sports history is fraught with very low probably events that actually happened.

As one-offs.

Not repeatedly, year after year. You missed that part of @turtleback's post:

42 minutes ago, turtleback said:

But hey, maybe they are right and just such a rare occurrence happened year after year in golf during the parallel periods of Jack's career and Tiger's.  {shrug}

I sensed sarcasm there. Maybe I'm wrong… but I doubt it.

Christ, man, LOOK at the golfers playing today. Consider that Nicklaus practicing for a few hours a day was considered a lot of practice, while today's golfer works out more than golfers of the 60s practiced back then.

I'm sorry, and I get what you're saying with the "likely" or "probable" stuff… but no. Trust the math… and add in some common sense.

The fields are significantly stronger/deeper now.

[fishgolf]

Why is this question so important to TW fans?  Jack Nicklaus fans are completely satisfied knowing he is the best golfer ever. 

[iacas]

1 minute ago, fishgolf said:

Why is this question so important to TW fans?  Jack Nicklaus fans are completely satisfied knowing he is the best golfer ever. 

He's not. Tiger is.

Also… .

[fishgolf]

1 minute ago, iacas said:

He's not. Tiger is.

Also… .

Off topic, really?  You mean the OP was honestly not thinking GOAT when the thread was created?  Also, you did not answer my question - but then perhaps your not a TW's fan?  

[iacas]

1 minute ago, fishgolf said:

Off topic, really?  You mean the OP was honestly not thinking GOAT when the thread was created? 

Yes, this topic isn't about the GOAT. We have another topic for that.

This is about the strength and depth of field, and consistent with all of your posts on the Jack/Tiger topics, you've offered nothing of substance. Just your opinion dressed up as a fact or something one can "know."