Daryl

Haha! Fair enough. Hey, I'm a Tiger guy, not a Phil guy. But 44 PGA Tour wins and 5 majors? I'd say his good decisions far outweighed his few "Tin Cup" moments. Given the depth of today's fields and fact that golf has become strictly a "drive and putt" game. I doubt we'll see any of these young guns of today surpass Phil's career stats. By the way, by 'drive and putt', I mean that Bobby Jones, Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan and Jack Nicklaus dominated golf with their long irons. Those clubs mostly stay in the bag now, except on some Par 5's. Tiger and Phil had to dominate with their putting, and their percentage career stats don't match their historic peers because equipment improvements have penalized the superior ball strikers. In other words, it's my opinion that if modern players were to use older equipment, Tiger and Phil would have dominated even more than they did.

Let's be honest. How smart do you have to be to caddy for Phil? In his prime, he could have won a PGA tournament with one arm tied behind his back.

Great point. I loved MIller's 'tude. Who could bring that to the booth? Not Tiger, he's always parsed his words. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I think we'll see Mickelson as a lead announcer. He's a talker and has WAY more charisma than Miller ever had. Would he be incendiary like Miller? My guess is yes, he would want to make it interesting. And to your point, besides Tiger, he's the only guy left who can back it up. Re the Begay trolls ... when I first heard he was going to announce, I thought he might be a Team Tiger plant, put in there to fawn over Woods in exchange for special access. But I've been very impressed with his commentary and announcing voice. He's here to stay, despite the haters.

Good point. Kock would be great. But so would almost any of the announcers on that team. Here's who I think should have gotten that job in order of preference 1) Jacobson 2) Feherty 3) Begay 4) Koch 5) Maltbie Azinger's career record doesn't justify getting the job. 12 Tour wins and one major? That gives him superior insight vrs these announcers who not only have solid PGA careers, but tons of announcing experience? I don't get it.

Personally, I liked Miller from the get-go. I question how much Azinger can improve. He did this same job for ABC and ESPN from 2005 to 2015. Maybe he didn't get alot of airtime because they didn't have rights to many tournaments, but that's still way more experience than Johnny Miller had. Yes, Venturi and Nance were probably the best combo we'll ever see. I think we'll see Mickelson in the booth eventually. He's a talker and a real people magnet, if you've ever followed him around a course.

I missed the Jack interview. Turned the sound off. I don't need to evaluate Azinger further. He's a known quantity after years on Fox broadcasts. Listen, this is a really tough job. You have to have a great announcing voice and be able to consistently offer original insights to the tournaments. But the main thing is you have to come across as somebody we would like to hang out with i.e. the likability factor. Azinger is weak on all three fronts and I can't imagine who made the decision to put him in there when you have a bunch of guys on the team already who clearly better qualified.

Wanted to see if anyone feels the same way I do. I think Azinger lacks charisma and has a nasally, annoying voice. His fundamental tone is one of sarcasm that isn't redeemed by any wit or original insight into the game. He grates on me to the point where I will being passing on some NBC telecasts this year. I hate to mute the programs, because I really like rest of the NBC team. Here's my list of who should have replaced Miller as lead color analyst: Peter Jacobson Roger Maltbie Notah Begah David Feherty

Sure dude. Mark Frost wrote "The Greatest Game Ever Played" about the 1914 US Open. It is basically a biography of Vardon. Frost then wrote a biography of Bobby Jones. I read the Hogan biography by a guy named Dodson, I think. I read Bryon Nelson's autobiography titled "How I Played the Game" And Nicklaus's autobiography call "My Way"? Don't remember. Search on Amazon, you will find them all.

Course management and playing within your ability. Nothing much learn here reall. Most of the trouble on golf courses is right there in front of you. This is just about having the discipline not to swing from your shoes every time, play from the right tees, pick the smart club and play the smart shot, not the hero/pro shot.

I play in Georgia. The Bermuda rough tends to thicken up this time of year. Going right under a lot of chips and pitches around the green, especially on uphill lies. It's not so bad on longer shots because I take a bigger swing, it's the delicate shots where there is not much green to work with that cause the most trouble. Thanks in advance.

All very good points, powerfade. To refine the discussion, let's assume a couple of things. We are defining the "greatest" golfer as the one who most dominated his peers during his era. This eliminates many of the variables you alluded to. It is also a legitimate measurement used in many sports where the differences between eras are even more pronounced than golf ie football and basketball. As you pointed out - and it is quite often acknowledged by people discussing other sports - there are many reasons that comparing athletes from different eras playing head to head isn't really possible. Also, before anybody brings it up, we are going to pencil in Woods with 18 career majors just for the sake of argument. That shouldn't be so controversial today as it was a couple of years ago. Number of majors won seems to me the primary way to determine how dominant a player was during his era. There are other considerations, say Snead's career 80 something wins, but in golf it's mostly all about the majors. Let me bring up the case of Harry Vardon. Vardon won 6 British Opens and one US Open. As far as I know he only played in 3 US Opens, finishing 1st in 1900, 2nd in 1911 and 2nd in 1920 (at age 50!). There was of course no Masters during his career and the PGA Championshiop didn't start until 1915, when he was 45. Furthermore, he was laid out for two years during his prime winning period (1902-1903) with a severe case of tuberculosis that almost killed him, yet he came back to win majors anyway. It is thought that a residual nerve problem in his hand from the bout with TB ruined his putting stroke and cost him several more championships post 1903. He turned professional in 1890 at age 20 and won his last British Open in 1914 at age 44 (matching Jack's '86 Masters heroics). So let's say that like Jack, he competed for 25 years in major winning form. That's 100 majors entered by Jack vrs only 26 for Vardon (23 British Opens plus 3 US Opens). His winning percentage is 7 divided by 26 or 27 pct vrs Jacks 18 pct. Who dominated his peers more, Jack Nicklaus or Harry Vardon?

For the last year or so I've been reading some golf history books, mostly biographies of older era golfers. The more I read about them, the more I am impressed by their records and abilities. My thesis here is that it is a mistake to rule older era golfers out of the "greatest golfer of all time" argument. I haven't come to a firm conclusion myself whether or not any of them are better than Nicklaus or Woods, but I think several arguments can be made in their favor. The key matter that brings them into contention is the unfair measuring stick of Nicklaus' 18 major victories. The older era golfers couldn't possibly have won so many majors for the simple reason that they didn't have the opportunity to compete in as many majors as modern era golfers. Given their major winning percentages, it is easy to project 18 or more majors for many of them by entering them into as many theoretical majors as the modern era golfers play in. I am prepared to discuss most older era golfers in these terms on a case by case basis, but I would like to first see how much interest there is on the board and if anyone else has some thoughts to contribute right off the bat. I don't claim to be an expert on old era golf and there are a lot of gaps my information. Part of the reason I wanted to start this thread was in the hope of adding to my own knowledge. Also, an active discussion will naturally lead to many interesting side issues, such as equipment changes, rule changes, tour changes, how to define the best athelete in any sport and even issues related to the nature of the golf itself.

Not like it matters. It's easier to get into Fort Knox than into Tiger's head.

Not a fake golfer, but that sure was a fake wrist injury. Brilliant move really. Moved all the focus at Oakmont from the big choke at Wing Foot to poor Phil's wrist. Wie's got to be going nuts. Nobody believed her injury for a second, yet nobody, I mean nobody, questioned Phil's and he had much more motivation to lie.

I followed Paula around Wykagl in New Rochelle a couple of years ago for her first win. She's cute, but I have a 15 year old daughter...ummm...getting uncomfortable fantazising about anyone that young these days. What's Natalie, 26? Oh well, I guess I have to go with her.