The big three, long live the big thre...., the big one, live the big one

[nevets88]

I'll let the titles speak for themselves, but the press and their everlasting search for a narrative to pull you in. It deserves a face palm. This for you media folks, 

Remember golf’s Big Three? It’s clearly now a Big One

http://nypost.com/2016/05/15/remember-golfs-big-three-its-clearly-now-a-big-one/

Players Championship Post Mortem: Is the 'Big Three' Dead?

http://www.golf.com/tour-and-news/2016-players-championship-wrap-big-three-dead

Tour Confidential: Has Jason Day Erased the Big Three for Big One?

http://www.golf.com/tour-and-news/tour-confidential-has-jason-day-erased-big-three-big-one

Aggregated by Geoff Shackelford: 

http://www.geoffshackelford.com/homepage/2016/5/15/day-wins-the-players-rip-big-three-big-four.html

[Dave2512]

Goes in cycles, cue the new Tiger talk. Then JD will fall out of the clouds and one of the others will win and it will be Big 3 talk again. Big 4 if Rickie wins something big. 

[Chilli Dipper]

The Big Three (or Four, or Whatever) is purely a media construction. The count of players who can win on any given week, and have it be viewed as unsurprising, is far larger than that.

However, there is only one golfer who, over the last twelve months, has been in contention to win nearly every time he has teed it up, and that's Jason Day. I'm not going to anoint him as the new Tiger, but he's at such a higher level week in and week out than Jordan, or Rory, or whoever else you want to shoehorn into that elite club. There can still be a Big Three, but the debate over who is currently the best player in the world is closed for now.

[Dave2512]

It's really just a golf media invention, mostly likely due to a lack or Tiger news. They've been trying to find someone to hang his crown on since 2014. The Big 3 talk only started because someone besides Rory started winning big tournaments, though somehow Bubba isn't included in the conversation. I won't be surprised if he finishes higher in the 2016 OWGR than Jordan.

[natureboy]

38 minutes ago, Chilli Dipper said:

The Big Three (or Four, or Whatever) is purely a media construction. The count of players who can win on any given week, and have it be viewed as unsurprising, is far larger than that.

I partly agree that it's a media construction. 'The field' almost always has a better chance of winning than even the number one. Tiger got up to 50% with a slightly limited schedule that might have favored the best courses for his game plus the WGC's and Majors.

However, in any given era a group of top players can distance themselves from the field (mostly top 30-40) in terms of OWGR points or results and have some kind of statistical claim to a 'big 3' or whatever.

38 minutes ago, Chilli Dipper said:

However, there is only one golfer who, over the last twelve months, has been in contention to win nearly every time he has teed it up, and that's Jason Day. I'm not going to anoint him as the new Tiger, but he's at such a higher level week in and week out than Jordan, or Rory, or whoever else you want to shoehorn into that elite club. There can still be a Big Three, but the debate over who is currently the best player in the world is closed for now.

I agree 40% wins vs. starts since last year's British Open is Tiger-like. Length plus top-tier putting and very good short game makes him formidable at every event where his long game isn't too far off. Jordan lacks the length and so far this year isn't compensating with enough accuracy, and Rory lacks the short game. We'll see if Day can sustain consistent accuracy with the long game enough to hold his edge. Runs of form for a year or so can sometimes fade away, but I hope his success just motivates Rory, Spieth, & Fowler to just sharpen their games further. Also, IMO Rory won't probably be 100% settled into his new putting style till next year.

[newtogolf]

I like Day a lot but hope he's not the next Tiger.  I won't be able to handle all my playing partners "visualizing" their next shot the entire round.  

[boogielicious]

31 minutes ago, newtogolf said:

I like Day a lot but hope he's not the next Tiger.  I won't be able to handle all my playing partners "visualizing" their next shot the entire round.  

[Dave2512]

34 minutes ago, newtogolf said:

I like Day a lot but hope he's not the next Tiger.  I won't be able to handle all my playing partners "visualizing" their next shot the entire round.  

Lol I played with a dude doing that yesterday. I was thinking seriously you haven't hit one predicable shot all day. He'd hit some crap shot, chase it and start over.

[bkuehn1952]

1 hour ago, newtogolf said:

I like Day a lot but hope he's not the next Tiger.  I won't be able to handle all my playing partners "visualizing" their next shot the entire round.  

Or borrow a bit from each of the top golfers, visualize, re-boot multiple times, toss clubs in the water, etc...

[Scotsclaff]

9 hours ago, Chilli Dipper said:

The Big Three (or Four, or Whatever) is purely a media construction. The count of players who can win on any given week, and have it be viewed as unsurprising, is far larger than that.

However, there is only one golfer who, over the last twelve months, has been in contention to win nearly every time he has teed it up, and that's Jason Day. I'm not going to anoint him as the new Tiger, but he's at such a higher level week in and week out than Jordan, or Rory, or whoever else you want to shoehorn into that elite club. There can still be a Big Three, but the debate over who is currently the best player in the world is closed for now.

Well put about the "media construction",I absolutely agree.But then you go on to say"I'm not going to anoint him the new Tiger". He never will be because he's Jason Day.

[newtogolf]

The media is always looking to anoint the next phenom(s) in a given sport, golf is no different.  How many basketball players were labeled the next Jordan and then had their careers constantly compared to Jordan.  I don't follow basketball much these days but poor Kobe Bryant must be exhausted carrying around Jordans shadow his entire career.  

Rory, Day and Spieth currently stand out in golf as being above the rest but that's a short lived place in the highly competitive PGA Tour.  The media has placed their bets on others before, Reed, Dufner and Fowler and we know they are just chomping at the bit for Bryson to win a few tournaments.  

The big three combined have four wins out of 20 events so far this year, Rory has yet to win on the PGA Tour so his inclusion in the group is more based on past performance and potential than actual results.  One could make a better case for Adam Scott or Patrick Reed over Rory based on this season given Scott has two wins this season and Reed has placed top 10 in over half of the tournaments he's played in (8 of 15).   

 

[k-troop]

22 hours ago, natureboy said:

'The field' almost always has a better chance of winning than even the number one. Tiger got up to 50% with a slightly limited schedule that might have favored the best courses for his game plus the WGC's and Majors.

However, in any given era a group of top players can distance themselves from the field (mostly top 30-40) in terms of OWGR points or results and have some kind of statistical claim to a 'big 3' or whatever.

Your post intrigued me, so I decided to crunch some stats just for giggles.  2007 was Tiger's last full season before the broken leg/knee issue in 2008.  He finished 2-2-12-W in the majors that year and won the Tour Championship and FedEx Cup.  Immediately after the TC in September 2007 his OWGR points avg. was 24.35.  Phil was #2, 14.73 points behind Tiger.

Currently JD is at #1 with 13.37  avg. points, Jordan is #2 with 10.9, and Rory #3 with 8.8.  Conclusions we can draw from these numbers:

1. Tiger's lead over #2 in Sept 2007 was by more avg. points than JD currently has.

2. The highest ranked golfer over which JD can claim a 2x lead is Adam Scott at #7.

3. I wanted to find the point in the OWGR where JD can claim a lead as big as Tiger's was over the #2 spot in 2007...but that's not possible.  JD's lead over #10,000 in OWGR isn't as big as Tiger's lead was over #2.

Obviously JD isn't Tiger.  But what the numbers show is how astronomically far away he really is, even after 8 wins in the last 15 months.  He's not 10% behind.  He's 100% behind.

Spoiler

That said, JD is the only golfer of the top-3 who is currently adding OWGR points at a faster rate than he's losing them.

 

23 hours ago, natureboy said:

I agree 40% wins vs. starts since last year's British Open is Tiger-like.

In the 2-year (8 majors) stretch after the 2006 US Open, from the '06 British to the '08 US Open, Tiger finished:

W-W-T2-T2-T12-W-2-W.

Combined best finish among the current big-3 for the last 8 majors (from '14 US Open to '16 Masters): 

T4-W-W-W-W-T4-W-T2.

 

It takes all three of the "Big-3" combined to equal a "Big-1."

[natureboy]

3 hours ago, k-troop said:

Your post intrigued me, so I decided to crunch some stats just for giggles.

That's not surprising. JD would have to continue his run of form for at least another year and probably include another Major or two for him to approach Tiger's separation from the next best golfers in 2007.

What I was really saying was that if you looked at the top 100 or 160 and took the average number of points and the standard deviation, then JD and some of the top 3 might have a significant gap between themselves and the next guys down on the list that is larger than the gaps between that top 3 or 4. If there's a relatively continuous transition from the top guys to the lower ranked guys then there's less of a 'Big 3' or whatever. Given the number of wins and Majors by the top guys in say Jack's era I would expect that kind of gap between the 'Big 3' and the rest of the field.

Below is what I'd consider a classic example of a 'Big 3' year. 2004 had Vijay, Tiger, and Ernie quite close to each other in standard deviations above the mean for average points for the top 160 in OWGR but with a good gap between them and the field. The other two players with the gap from the field were Goosen & Mickelson.

Your example year of 2007 has an emphatic one, with a noticeable, but relatively small gap between Mickelson and the rest of the field.

The current picture looks more like a 'Big 2', but I'd still consider Rory closer to Spieth than the field if you take into account all the potential points he missed out on with his injury last year.

Edited May 17, 2016 by natureboy

[Gunther]

I brought this up in a much less formal way last month when Rory was closer to 7 than he was to 2; it looked like the big 2.  Up until yesterday, Jordan was less than a point from JDay, a win would have pushed him to the top.  But, JDay got almost 2 pts with his win and Jordan got none with his cut so the separation occurred.  Jordan is now 2 wins away, depending on what Day does but still very much in the picture.  Rory has some work to do, as he has for almost a year now.

I'll still call them the Big 4, I don't mind that distinction.  I won't watch an event these days if one of my top 5 isn't playing (JS, JD, RM, RF, or Phil).  I'll add Tiger to the group if he comes back.

Golf is good. 

Edited May 17, 2016 by Gunther

[boogielicious]

22 hours ago, newtogolf said:

The media is always looking to anoint the next phenom(s) in a given sport, golf is no different.  How many basketball players were labeled the next Jordan and then had their careers constantly compared to Jordan.  I don't follow basketball much these days but poor Kobe Bryant must be exhausted carrying around Jordans shadow his entire career.  

Rory, Day and Spieth currently stand out in golf as being above the rest but that's a short lived place in the highly competitive PGA Tour.  The media has placed their bets on others before, Reed, Dufner and Fowler and we know they are just chomping at the bit for Bryson to win a few tournaments.  

The big three combined have four wins out of 20 events so far this year, Rory has yet to win on the PGA Tour so his inclusion in the group is more based on past performance and potential than actual results.  One could make a better case for Adam Scott or Patrick Reed over Rory based on this season given Scott has two wins this season and Reed has placed top 10 in over half of the tournaments he's played in (8 of 15).   

 

I am probably dating myself, but I remember when the Bay City Rollers were the "Next Beatles". Spot on post.

[Lastpick]

I think Jason Day is on a phenomenal run.  I don't want him to be anything other than Jason Day.  The competition in professional golf is at a higher level now than at any time in history.  I think the most outstanding stat that Tiger has, is 142 consecutive cuts made.  Could be more or less as the 142 is just from memory.  I don't think that Jordan will reach the levels of Day, Rory or Woods because he is at such a disadvantage distance wise from the tee.  In his prime, Woods had an distance advantage over the rest of the field.

If Jason Day had competed well at the recent Presidents Cup, the USA would not have won.

Edited May 18, 2016 by Lastpick

[kpaulhus]

Im not really a fan of people comparing Jason Day to Tiger Woods. Tiger had 40 tour wins by the age of 28.

You cant really say Jason Day is on par with that kind of performance, just yet. Maybe when he wins 7 or more majors, but in my eyes Tiger is one of the greatest of all time and shouldn't be compared to the current "Hot" Players on tour. Nobody dominates like Tiger did. 

[Yukari]

9 minutes ago, kpaulhus said:

Im not really a fan of people comparing Jason Day to Tiger Woods. Tiger had 40 tour wins by the age of 28.

You cant really say Jason Day is on par with that kind of performance, just yet. Maybe when he wins 7 or more majors, but in my eyes Tiger is one of the greatest of all time and shouldn't be compared to the current "Hot" Players on tour. Nobody dominates like Tiger did. 

I agree. We should wait how Day does for the next two years before trying to compare him to Tiger or any other hall of fame players.