2018 British Open Championship at Carnoustie

[brocks]

2 hours ago, iacas said:

It's golf. It's not like he's going to cut off their limbs and pillage their homes.

To be fair, he did hear the lamentations of their women.

[Moxley]

4 hours ago, iacas said:

:sigh: Whatever man.

I'm going back to what I said: players weren't intimidated by Tiger Woods. He was just a lot better than they were. He forced them to try to shoot a great score, or to do something they weren't capable of to beat him. I've talked to a number of them about that, and it goes beyond them not wanting to sound like wimps who were "intimidated" by a golfer (it's not like this is boxing or even football).

Tiger was simply better than them. It was that simple. The "intimidation" narrative needs to die. It was never true, and Tiger doesn't need to "get that intimidation level back" or anything else like that. If he can play like he did before, he'll win again like he did before because others will be forced to do things they're not often capable of doing.

 

I think this is the intimidation factor. Of course they weren't afraid of them , it's much more subtle than that, but I think his presence on leaderboards affected some players mentally, I don't think it's necessarily the player paired with him, but those around him on the leaderboard. Take the example of the player whose never won a major, and looks at the leaderboard in the final round, which shows Tiger on their tail. I can imagine that some of these guys would probably feel the pressure to shoot another 3/4 shots under par on the way in, instead of playing solidly and putting the pressure on Tiger to chase. Conversely, I imagine some players who saw Tiger's name just ahead of them on a leaderboard would be minded to protect what they have (the money, ryder cup points etc) because they lacked the confidence to attack and beat him. I'm not saying this always happened, or even in the majority of cases, but I do suspect it happened often enough to give Tiger an advantage. 

So this is what has changed, nobody is unduly concerned when they see his name go to the top of a leaderboard anymore, they won't start taking unnecessary risks anymore than if it was Speith's name, or Beau Hossler. 

 

[boogielicious]

7 hours ago, iacas said:

They weren't "afraid" of him then, either.

He was just way, way better.

It's golf. It's not like he's going to cut off their limbs and pillage their homes.

I'm glad I wasn't sipping coffee when I read this! 

There may have been an instance or two where a player tried a shot they really shouldn't have, but for the most part, top players played their own game and Tiger was just that much better. It's not like he was hitting 400 yard drives, hitting every approach shot to two feet and sinking every 40 foot putt. Tiger was just consistently better than the field for a long time.

He may have had the opposite effect from intimidation. He may have elevated the play of his playing partners. They have bigger crowds watching them and are playing with the GOAT. Molinari wasn't intimidated, but he sure played his best. I think this was the case for Rocco, Yang and others who played Tiger head to head. They played their absolute best when the played with him. Tiger's best was just better as was his B game.

[saevel25]

I never thought that golfers were scared of Tiger. There is a difference between being scared, and  feeling the pressure knowing the type of round a golfer needs to play to chase Tiger. It might have been more the case that the golfers had to press more than they are use to.

[Zekez]

9 hours ago, iacas said:

Perception ain't reality.

Perception IS reality!

[saevel25]

3 minutes ago, Zekez said:

Perception IS reality!

No it isn't.

Case #1 - You perceive your body moving the club in a certain way. You look on video, it isn't doing what you perceive it to be doing. Hence, perception isn't reality.

Case #2 - You perceive people not beating Tiger. You believe no one can be that good. You validate your opinion by saying people are just scared of him. You have no evidence to prove this opinion. What you perceive may or may not be true.

Case #3 - A woman testifies she saw a man kill another man in a vehicle. The attorney has the trial do a site visit to the crime scene at the time of night. He proves it was impossible for the woman to have seen the killer. The woman self validated what she thought she perceived. In reality it didn't happen.

There are many more cases were perception isn't reality. Humans will self validate a lot of what they think they perceive to the point they convince themselves of a reality that didn't happen.

[rehmwa]

1 hour ago, saevel25 said:

I never thought that golfers were scared of Tiger. There is a difference between being scared, and  feeling the pressure knowing the type of round a golfer needs to play to chase Tiger. It might have been more the case that the golfers had to press more than they are use to.

This ^

This is what some called "intimidation" - personally, I think it's an abuse of the definition of the word - overly dramatic, but apparently it gave announcers something to say....

[3jacker]

Like saying how "courageous" a player is when he hits a certain shot.

It's a silly game, albeit for the pros, a lucrative one.  Courage really doesn't come into play here.

[Moxley]

5 minutes ago, rehmwa said:

This ^

This is what some called "intimidation" - personally, I think it's an abuse of the definition of the word - overly dramatic, but apparently it gave announcers something to say....

Perhaps, although whether the word is correct one matters less than the point. When people talk about the Tiger Woods intimidation factor, I think they are basically making the following point : 

a) that he had an effect on his competitors, above and beyond what other players would have done

b) that the effect was negative on the competitors and therefore positive for TW
 

For this to be of relevance, it goes beyond players playing more aggressive in order to chase TW (which in most cases was the correct play for a player prioritising victory), but would refer to players feeling a pressure to be more aggressive than they maybe would need to be.  

I think he did have this effect on some competitors, what @saevel25 refers to as pressure, but it's very hard to know. I would certainly say such an effect would have been fairly limited, and likely exaggerated by commentators. I also don't think it would have made a difference to somebody as solid as Molinari, who I think would have done what he needed to do , regardless. 

 

[rehmwa]

28 minutes ago, Moxley said:

Perhaps, although whether the word is correct one matters less than the point. When people talk about the Tiger Woods intimidation factor, I think they are basically making the following point :@saevel25

I like your post - nicely stated.  But it simply could have been called the "Tiger Woods Factor" and it would have been just fine. 

We do like the dramatic even at the cost of the english language.  Example up top is 'courage'.  I think the word "hero" has zero meaning today as it's overused to a ridiculous extent.  etc  (so no worries, I'm grinding an axe here beyond just the topic)

Edited July 24, 2018 by rehmwa

[Buckeyebowman]

23 hours ago, iacas said:

That’s not what they say.

What they say makes no difference, since it may be self serving. And I suppose that  you've talked to every last one of them!

22 hours ago, Vinsk said:

He just beat a whole bunch of them in a major tournament. 

True, but he did not win, he faded during the round. Thus the reputation is not burnished!

22 hours ago, iacas said:

They weren't "afraid" of him then, either.

He was just way, way better.

It's golf. It's not like he's going to cut off their limbs and pillage their homes.

Maybe not. But they knew he was in the field! And that was challenging!

They knew what they were up against, and I believe it affected their mindset. Like they were playing for second place at best.

It was just a recognition of the then current reality!

Edited July 25, 2018 by Buckeyebowman

[saevel25]

2 minutes ago, Buckeyebowman said:

They knew what they were up against, and I believe it affected their mindset. Like they were playing for second place at best.

It was just a recognition of the current reality!

Why should they think that? It's not like he even won half the tournaments he entered. He actually lost more than he won. 

I file these opinions as half-baked logic from people who can't accept a person can be that good at something. There has to be some other reason why. 

[iacas]

26 minutes ago, Buckeyebowman said:

What they say makes no difference, since it may be self serving. And I suppose that  you've talked to every last one of them!

Way more than you have. All? No.

26 minutes ago, Buckeyebowman said:

They knew what they were up against, and I believe it affected their mindset. Like they were playing for second place at best.

Well that settles it! A dude who has never been inside the ropes believes something to be true!

🤦‍♂️

[Hardspoon]

I agree that the "intimidation" narrative, with Tiger, was vastly overrated.

When in doubt, it's safe to assume that any narrative revolving around subjective factors in sports is vastly over-stated by those describing (ie, writing about) it.  From the idea of "momentum", to NBA shooters on "hot streaks", to Tiger's "never coming from behind to win a major", these things are completely exaggerated and much more a result of random chance and selective memory than actual phenomena.

[nevets88]

I missed this during the Open, player loses his swing on the range, goes crazy.

 

[boogielicious]

47 minutes ago, nevets88 said:

I missed this during the Open, player loses his swing on the range, goes crazy.

 

Kind of like this.