Rogin

Hagen won lots of PGA titles that Jones didn't enter (nor the other top amateurs of the day), and never beat his illustrious rival at an Open championship (US or British). No question which of those two ranks higher. I'd also put Hogan above Snead, as although Sam won more in quantity, Hogan's almost total dominance in, again, the majors that mattered after coming back from his terrible injuries in 1949 eclipsed anything Snead did. Not maybe a candidate for number 3 but a definite top 5 shout for me would be Seve - not just for his 5 majors but the fact that he was the player who showed European golfers could win majors in the States against the very best like Nicklaus and Watson and opened the floodgates for Langer, Lyle, Faldo etc.

Back in the 1950s, there was a tournament pretty much the precursor of this FedEx Cup, called the "World Championship". The first prize grew to ridiculous amounts, $50,000 when the US Open winner used to get $5,000. The pros, back in the day, used to refer to it as a major, although no-one recognizes it such, retrospectively, now, and some of its winners - Lew Worsham, Ted Kroll - are all but forgotten. I think many FedEx Cup winners will go the same way, apart from Spieth this year.

Probably half of the European side are naturalized US citizens for tax reasons (and the other half will be). It's because you guys don't pay any taxes, or have a social security system and look after the poor like we do in Europe. Most pro golfers, like most millionaires, seem to become Republicans as soon as they buy their first home. The Ryder Cup isn't about that though. It's about where you "want" to represent. Rory McIlroy wants to represent Ireland (not GB) in Rio in 2016. I respect him for that. Would Jason Day want to represent the USA? I doubt it.

"Winning the FedEx Cup" in no way equates to "being the best player across the season". Most recent FedEx Cup winners weren't even ranked in the top ten on the season-long rankings entering the playoffs, but just hit a streak in the right month. Indeed, most have actually won the FedEx Cup just by virtue of winning the Tour Championship, such is the way that event dominates the scoring system in the end. On the pre-playoff FedEx Cup rankings, Spieth was on 4,169 points, Day was on 2,459. That's a pretty good reflection of the relative years to that point. Is winning 2 of the playoff events a big deal? Well, Billy Horschel did just that last year, and I expect few golf fans remember that now, let alone in 5 years' time.

It would have been a chilly thanksgiving dinner at the Haas Mansion if Jay hadn't picked his lad. No surprise there. I'm interested to see if cutting the number of foursomes/fourballs to 5 in each session (not 6) helps the International side make more of a contest of it. Although they have a strong side, they don't have the strength in depth of the US, and allowing a couple of guys to sit out each session should help even it up a bit. In truth, Europe haven't matched the US team either, player-for-player, in recent Ryder Cups, but allowing them to put out just 4 pairs raring to go helps them there, too. Plus it gives the US captain the problem Ryder Cup captains face, of dealing with the disgruntled "benched" players.

Yeah, everyone's nailed it above. It is a feature of the system where - in particular - the "number of events" divisor comes into play, 44 to 45 is a 2% swing on the average, and that clearly makes the difference when your top two have an average that's about 0.02 points apart to start with (as with now). It was the same with Donald and McIlory in the spring of 2012, too, they swapped it back and forward about five times in seven weeks for similar reasons.

Calling Tiger "Eldrick" is fair enough, as long as you also call Bubba "Gerry" or Boo "Thomas".

In the current World Rankings, all of the top 6 are major champions. That's the first time that's happened since the end of 2003. As recently as 2011, the top TEN included only three players - McIlroy, Kaymer and Schwartzel - who'd won a major, and the top two in the rankings were Donald and Westwood, who are still waiting one now. At present, three of the top four - Spieth, McIlroy and Watson - are not only major winners but multiple ones, and Day and Rose are fairly likely to join that set. Zach Johnson, another multiple major winner, is in 11th but should finish the year ranked higher. Comparing now to 4 years ago, have the top players now coalesced into a new "top set", that we can expect to see remain the ones sharing the top honours for a while now?

If teams were being selected for 2015, the 9 automatic selections would be (I think): USA (based on top 9 on money list) - Jordan Spieth, Bubba Watson, Dustin Johnson, Jimmy Walker, Zach Johnson, Rickie Fowler, Robert Streb, Brandt Snedeker and J.B. Holmes. Europe (based on top 5 World Ranking point leaders in 2015 followed by next 4 on Race to Dubai points) - Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose, Henrik Stenson, Bernd Wiesberger, Paul Casey, Danny Willett, Shane Lowry, Marc Warren and Ross Fisher. Some surprises in there - especially on the European side. I would expect the US would consider whether to add back in the experience of Phil Mickelson or Jim Furyk (or Tiger Woods, anyone?) and also have guys like Patrick Reed and Charley Hoffman just outside the top 9. As for Europe, I'd hate to be this year's captain only being able to pick 3 out of Martin Kaymer, Ian Poulter, Sergio Garcia, Luke Donald and Miguel Angel Jiminez. With 4 rookies already in the European top 9, though, it's hard to imagine a captain throwing another one in. Who would you go for?

er, "logic" must work differently in your head becacuse this makes perfect sense. THE Open is and will continue to be THE Open well, forever. What the hell are you saying is any different? Logic boy?

The defense has just lost its case, humiliatingly. The very reason the others are called the French Open, the Scottish Open, the Canadian Open, the Australian Open, the US Open ... is to recognize the fact that none of them are THE Open championship. The original. The one and only. As for American golfers not participating in the 1940s and 1950s, well more fool them. Bobby Locke beat the crap out of the lot of them on the PGA tour from 1947 to 1950 until they found a way to ban him, then came back and shared the next 8 Open titles with Peter Thomson (and Hogan). And Thomson's 5th Open title in 1965 saw him beating Nicklaus, Palmer, Player and Lema so who's to say any of the Americans would have beaten him in the 1950s. GB&I; lost the 1953 Ryder Cup on the final green and won the 1957 one against the best the Americans had to offer.

If Spieth had holed that putt at St Andrews and won there, we'd probably all be quite deflated now that Day had just ruined the single-year Grand Slam. But actually I think this year played out perfectly (for everyone except Dustin Johnson). Spieth has gone up immeasurably in my estimation (as I said on the other thread) for how he's handled his narrow defeats more than how he's handled his wins. Golf didn't need another juggernaut like Tiger, destroying everyone before him. It's great for the kids playing the game now to have a role model who wins AND loses occasionally and laughs either way. I hope Spieth goes on to win (and narrowly lose) as many majors as Nicklaus.

And as far as scores to par are concerned nowadays, who gives a shit? The equipment and the technology already means that it's meaningless to compare St. Andrews, or Pebble Beach, now when Trevino or Nicklaus were playing them; let alone Hogan or Snead.

Van de Velde didn't "choke" in 99, he hit a bad shot that bounced off a grandstand into an impossible position. If it had bounced literally anywhere else he'd have had a drop and been Open champion. The only one who truly "choked" in '99 was Justin Leonard, who stuffed it into the water on the 18th from the middle of the fairway in the playoff and allowed Paul Lawrie to win. But you don't remember that.