turtleback

Phil, and IMO it isn't even particularly close. And I'm not sure, but I think Vijay would be my #4. I wonder if this agrees with my answer when I first started this thread, as I haven't looked back to see.

So the female GOAT tennis player is still Margaret Court? Serena will be devestated, LOL.

I'm not predicting it or anything, but would anyone really be shocked if Tiger chalked up a 'second career' career grand slam before any of the young guns complete whatever they have left? And by 'second career' career grand slam I mean where the three remaining pieces are after this Masters. Phil - US Open Arnie - PGA Snead - US Open If a career grand slam were easy, everyone would have one.

At the risk of tarnishing my fanboy image, I have to point out that this distorts rather than illuminates. You can see this very quickly if you look at DJ's average, recalculated on HIS last 26 events with a denominator of 26. I've done that and it turns out to be around 15. Is it because he has played so much better than in the prior events? No, it is because those prior events get aged down. Tiger's 26 events have not been NEARLY as significantly aged as DJ's 47 events. I've made that same denominator argument myself, in the past, but once I realized the reality I had to abandon it. Exactly. An opinion is due respect only to the degree that the accuracy of the facts and logic on which it is based deserve respect.

Great minds travel similar paths.

That is a key point. Jack shouldn't get to decide what the criteria for GOAT is, yet he did. Several times. With changing definitions, tailored to what he could achieve or thought he could achieve. From winning a 'Bobby Jones' type slam as a career amateur, to winning a professional grand slam (which Tiger arguably has done, with the only argument on the meaning of grand), to beating Snead's PGA victory career total (which Tiger is about to do but which, with any set of consistent criteria on what counts and what doesn't was surpassed long ago). He couldn't do any of them. So except for that quixotic notion of being a career amateur, Tiger has actually met Jack's first couple of drafts of GOAT criteria a lot better than Jack ever did. And then someone pointed out his number of majors was closing in on Jones' total (of different majors) and virtually out of the blue, majors became the sine qua non for judging greatness. Before the early 70s majors were significant events, but nothing like what the have become. Now it is unheard of for a healthy player to skip any major he is eligible for. Not so for the 60s and before. In fact, no player before Jack was ever considered the GOAT based on number of majors. But it led to one of the most intellectually dishonest self-serving statements of all time, when Jack said the since money, equipment, and playing conditions change so much, the fairest way of comparing players of different eras was number of majors won. Totally ignoring the fact that when he said it he knew that he had WAY more opportunities to *play* in majors than anyone before him. When he said it his competition for GOAT would have been maybe Arnie, except Arnie had already stopped winning so Jack had him covered. The other guys, Hogan, Snead, maybe Hagen, were all covered because none of them had anywhere near the number of opportunities as Jack. Fairest way, indeed. But as Brocks has pointed out, Tiger did NONE of this kind of conniving to puff his record. The accepted standard was majors, and although he is a smart enough guy to understand what a bad standard that is, never tried to change it. Jack's 'fairest way' statement is why I said, in one of these threads, that if Tiger behaved like Jack he could have made the same statement about number of premium world class events - majjors, WGCs, and Players. At first blush we would all look at a statement like that as ludicrous. But that is exactly how we got that lame majors standard in the first place. And lest you think I'm spinning tales, this has all been verified upthread, down to citations and direct quotes. It was put together years ago by Brocks. These wars are old, and Brocks and I, among others, are seasoned campaigners, LOL.

If Tiger was Jack he would have lobbied for the goalpost to have been shifted long ago to most premium events, defined as majors, WGCs, and Players.

If you truly believe it is all just conjecture now, how would winning 3 more majors make it any less of a conjecture? I think you just revealed yourself.

The field argument has NOTHING to do with players getting better over time. It is about the tremendous increase in the universe from which the fields were drawn, due to a) huge increase in money, b) greater access to the game from outside the country club path, c) satellite tours that give the slower developing players the opportunity to hone their game to big tour level, and the huge one, d) globalisation. Tiger already proved he would be dominant using essentially the same technology that Jack used. What do you think he was playing when he dominated amateur golf with 6 junior and senior Amateurs, and then crushed the pro field in the '97 Masters? As Jack saId in '96, equipment improvements make it harder to dominate. Is it just me or are the Jack arguments just getting thinner and thinner.

This. This what dominance means. When someone can put together a collection of these marks they can start to be talked about in the GOAT conversation. https://thesandtrap.com/forums/topic/2203-jack-vs-tiger-whos-the-greatest-golfer/?page=301&tab=comments#comment-1366814

Sigh. They never played against each other as peers so you have created an impossible comparison. Congratulations. And I know EXACTLY what glom means in the context within which I used it. 'To appropriate for ones use', as in appropriate the 18>14/5 argument to 'prove' an argument. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/glom

I finally got to see the second Butler Cabin interview with just Tiger, Nick, and Nance. I think his answer was interesting when he was asked about Joey - he said that LaCava was the most loyal person you'd ever want to meet. Maybe THAT is what he needs. I'm sure that over his travails and even in the good years he had a lot of people show unfortunate true colors. I would imagine that after all that, loyalty would be a highly valued quality in someone so deep in the inner circle.

It is not subjective at all. As you say, we can calculate winning percentages, winning margins, consecutive events won, etc. It just means we do not blindly glom onto a couple of numbers (I sense you want as specific number of wins and majors) and the just forget about actually thinking about it, the way the 18>14/5 folks do. And there is also a good rule of thumb - if you aren't sure if a player is dominant, he isn't.

We do not penalize Jack for the level of his competition. We merely note that despite facing weaker competition his record is nowhere near as dominant as Tigers in 25 different areas, and the only area he leads in is 18>15. As I have maintained for years 18>14(now 15) is the only argument the Jack supporters have - and stop the second place nonsense - no one achieves greatness by losing. @iacas used to argue with me about this, but I think it is fair to say he has come around. If you were to read back through the thread you will see that other than noting Jack's comments that tour cardholders in 1996 are the equivalent to the top players of his era, and top players in 1996 were the equivalent of superstars of his era, I have made my arguments independently of the the field issue. Partly because @iacas deals with that issue better than me but mostly because I DON'T NEED IT. If I stipulate, for the sake of argument, that they faced equally strong fields the Jack folks STLL have nothing besides 18>14/5. In any other measure of dominance Tiger is not only ahead of Jack, he is miles ahead. Whether we are talking cut streak, winning margin, winning percentage, consecutive wins - everything. I've made this challenge before - list Jack's seasons in order from best to worst. I'll so the same for Tiger. Then we can have a little match play, comparing their best seasons, second best seasons, third best season, etc. Don't bother, Tiger wins that 10 & 8. You are setting up a silly situation of transplanting them into each other's era and then claiming that because of the silly situation we really don't know anything. No one is dreaming anything about Tiger in the 60s or Jack in the 21st century. Maybe if Jack's record was remotely comparable to Tigers it might make sense, but the inescapable fact is that except for 18>14/5, Tigers record dwarfs Jacks. It is like comparing 2 basketball players at free throws. A shoots from 15 feet at a standard sizes basket. B shoots from 20 feet at a basket that is 10% smaller in size. B sinks a significantly higher percentage of baskets. Now you can apply your logic and claim that we can't say B is better than A because we don't know how they would each shoot under the other's condition. And it would be nonsense, just as it is when comparing Jack and Tiger's records.