Fidelio

Literally Jack's character was zero percent of why made that post. Zero point zero. I think I would know. I wrote it and know what was going on in my head.

No. I didn't. I made an argument about judgment and how it negatively influenced Tiger's career. Other people have made that argument about Jack's a swell guy so he is better. I think it is a bad one and irrelevant. I don't care even a little bit about the character of the two men as relates to this debate. I made no such argument. I am pretty sure I know what I wrote 3 minutes ago.

That's fine. Your argument is sighs and eye rolls. My argument is grounded in reason and facts. But just for fun. I just did. Hogan missed 33 events because of WWII and not playing the British in the period between his first and last top 10 in major. So, if he would have finished in the top 10 in EVERY ONE of the those events he would fall 1 short of Jack. Apology accepted. Try harder. Be better.

I literally made no argument about character. The argument was about decision making and the influence it had on the length of Tiger's career. I have no idea how you interpreted what I said otherwise. I don't care if Jack is a swell guy.

Not a relevant argument outside of WWII and the cost to play in the British Open. Ben Hogan has almost 50% fewer top 10s.

I explicitly said it wasn't a good argument. But it is interesting, Butch has gone all in on Jack. Obviously it could be sour grapes. I just thought it was worth noting. And I also thought it was interesting how the majority of people who overlapped with Jack and Tiger pick Jack. Ernie Els, a guy Jack dumped on for not being that great when he talked about Tiger's competition, effusively says Jack belongs ahead of Tiger. Faldo is a guy who overlapped with Tiger and Jack and would have a pretty good feel for the competition differences seems kind of offended at the notion someone would refer to Tiger as the greatest.

Actually those win per start stats are irrelevant. Jack played in tour events until he was 65. And Tiger's injuries were probably almost entirely because of poor life choices. Tiger is more beat up than NFL running backs. Nobody forced him to put that kind of strain on his body with 4 (5?) completely different golf swings. Nobody forced him to wreck his knee in Navy Seal training (source Haney's book). Tiger made the tabloid lifestyle choices he made that caused him to miss tournaments. And BTW, it is somewhat interesting judgment to go to Anthony Galea as doctor? I don't have any evidence that he did anything improper with Tiger, but at a minimum it is not what he should have done. All of those were bad choices Tiger made. Consistently bad choices have a way of catching up with you. Something people here don't like hear, Jack was just a lot better at life than Tiger was. Jack may not have been a better golfer, but he was an infinitely better decision maker and life manager which lead to a better career.

Seems like a pretty devastating argument actually. 37 top 2s and 73 top 10s vs 41 top 10s. Tiger's tied 50ths and missed cuts are not like finishing 4th (which was like a bad finish in Jack's 30s). And guys like Watson, Floyd, and Miller would have zero trouble adapting to the modern game. Trevino might not adjust as well but do guys like Spieth, Koepka, DJ rank in the same stratosphere as Lee? Not even close at this point. I just came back to see how much Tiger humping there would be. It is interesting that I have heard Butch Harmon in three separate interviews saying Jack has the superior career. I actually even heard Hank Haney flip and go to Jack. Not that this is great argument but other people I have heard this past year: Faldo adamantly said Jack is the greatest, Jim Furyk on Dan Patrick's show, Tom Watson, Ernie Els, Luke Donald, Norman, and I came across an interview with Jack pretty smugly saying his major career is vastly superior.

But he is though. Jack has almost as many top 2s as Tiger has 10s. You can say he faced super easy competition but why did Jack's peers compete so well against Tiger's peers. Did Raymond Floyd just get better at golf in his late 40s and early 50s? Did Tom Watson get better at 59?

Why didn't Hogan, Snead, Nelson, or anyone else do it? Why didn't Tom Watson do it? Why didn't Seve or Faldo or Norman do it?

Obviously Tiger is the best to ever play. Greatest? Not yet. maybe 1 more major and 9 more top tens and quality of competition argument becomes relevant. 16 vs 18 and 50 vs 73 is getting close. As it is right now Jack has almost as many top 2s as Tiger has top tens and Jack was in the process of having Watson and Hal Sutton rip majors from him at the same age Tiger is. Top tens 1. Jack -73 2. Watson - 46 Tiger-41 Hogan 39 Arnold- 38 Mickelson- 38 Ernie 35

At this point. I am telling. I am not debating on the luck issue. I am right. You are wrong. It isn't disputable. Continuing to act like what I am saying is crazy is the equivalent to not believing in gravity. The two sentences I singled out say everything that needs to be said about your posts. Why would it be bizarre to bring up counterpoints to your argument? If you pursue truth, that should happen constantly. It happens in almost all of my posts that are multiple paragraphs. It happens in none of your posts. Literally none. You write like Paul Krugman.

That's very nasty of you. Very nasty. I feel like replying in kind. I won't though. I will say the statement you quoted is one of the more profound ideas in the 12 years of this thread.

You do get judged by majors. Lee Westwood had a much better career in majors. Lee Westwood is a good example of why wins aren't the only thing that matter. Top finishes and luck should be big part of analysis. Perfectly illustrates why Jack's seconds, thirds, top tens are so important to the debate.

If Jack finishes 3 back and finishes 3rd in his era and Tiger finishes the same 3 back and finishes 8th in the modern era, the gap in finishes is larger because of field strength. It also means Jack should win more often on average because fewer people will luck into a win. And the times that Jack has better than average luck there will be fewer times that someone is slightly luckier because there are fewer people in contention.

I can see that I won't be giving you serious responses.

I don't disagree with what he said. You act like what he said is profound. It doesn't address ANY argument I have made. Seriously. He just said nothing. You primarily get judged on majors. I believe Jack would have had the better record in majors had they played in the same era. I believe Jack's game was better suited to majors than Tiger's. I am basing my reasoning on how consistently near the top Jack was in majors relative to Tiger. I just gave a lengthy response that spells things out quite clearly.

I am not penalizing anyone for doing something in a shorter time. I am looking at a total career. Whether the methodology is correct or not is irrelevant. The point of linking to study by Dartmouth academics is show that sports are very random and academics readily accept that. And they look to do studies to quantify that randomness to separate skill from luck. The conclusion that is almost always drawn is people overestimate the amount of control an athlete has and underestimate the amount of randomness Some studies where intuition vs reality diverge: Clutch Hitting http://research.sabr.org/journals/the-statistical-mirage-of-clutch-hitting Clutch Shooting https://sites.psu.edu/siowfa15/2015/11/30/the-clutch-gene-in-sports/ Hot hands and streaks http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~mozer/Teaching/syllabi/7782/readings/gilovich vallone tversky.pdf (All of those don't exist.) I shouldn't have said that but it was in response to equally bad insults hurled at me. That said, I am right. I am 100% certain I am right with respect to luck. And frankly, what I said shouldn't be controversial. I'll give it another crack. Let's say a person has a certain level of skill that says they should win 15% of the majors they entered over a career of 20 years. So if they are healthy they play in 80 majors. Based on their skill, they should win 12 majors on average. But will they win precisely 12 majors? With a sample size this small they could win 15 majors or 9 majors and still be well within what is expected based on their win rate. Two people of equal skill could be six majors apart. The only difference is the guy with 9 majors was very unlucky and the guy with 15 majors had a lot of good fortune, yet they are the same player. In the real world, you don't know how many majors a player would be expected to win. But you can look retrospectively. And a way that can help determine who got the short end of the straw would be to look at how often a person wins vs how often they contend. John Daly won 2 majors. Greg Norman won 2 majors. Greg contended in far more majors so it is safe to say that Greg was unlucky relative to Daly. In Greg's case, he had a lot of visible misfortune that people remember. Jack had 56 top 5s. Tiger has 31 top 5s. Out of that Jack won 18 majors and Tiger won 14. Jack closely contended almost double the number of times that Tiger did. The win rate vs times contended might be due to the aggressive style Tiger plays which will produce higher highs and lower lows. But mostly the gap between the number of majors contended in vs won is due to luck. If their careers played out a thousand times the gap in majors is likely larger than 4. It is very possible Jack should have win 20 majors on average during the era he competed and Tiger should have more like 12. I suspect if the actual major gap were 20 to 12, anyone who says Jack belongs ahead of Tiger wouldn't be treated like they are mildly retarded.

I never once said those other stats don't matter. Majors are the most important scorecard though. It has never not been that way since I first start playing golf at age 5. In fact, this is only place I have ever seen give so little weight to majors. Tiger was luckier relative to Jack. That isn't disputable. The degree disputable. Whether that puts Jack ahead of Tiger is disputable.

That's right. I go with the evidence. I am capable of looking at things objectively. It is a helpful skill. That in no way settles the debate over who had the better career. It does help Jack's case which I guess is why I am getting push back. It frankly is so self evident that I didn't even see the need to verbalize when I brought up the top finishes. It is implicit in bringing up top finishes. Just like field strength, reasonable people can't disagree with this.

That is true. That is a saying.. You can't control luck, so that statement is a more useful mental model than believing life is up chance. But is that saying completely accurate? Of course not. Luck plays a massive role in success. That has absolutely nothing to do with the amount of luck in their careers. Luck is going to be a bell shaped curve. What that paper does show is their is a lot of variance in golf. And since a career of majors is a limited sample size, a person's true win rate likely won't converge with their actual career win rate.

You want to know what is anti-math? The people ( YOU, for instance) who ridiculed me for just putting forward the hypothesis that Tiger was slightly lucky over his major career and Jack was slightly unlucky. Intuitively it should make sense that luck plays a significant role in career major numbers. Someone like Greg Norman had a lot of bad luck and had a lower major count (two) than his skill level would predict. Doesn't it seem at least plausible that Jack with 19 seconds and 9 thirds probably had a lower total major count that would be expected relative to his skill? Sure some people gave him tournaments (Doug Sanders) but he was runner up to Trevino 4 times and Watson 4 times.. http://www.golf.com/tour-and-news/jack-nicklaus-wasnt-far-winning-28-major-titles "Jack Nicklaus Wasn't Far From Winning 28 Major Championships" There are even a couple of academic papers that have tried to quantify luck in winning golf tournaments. Dead Solid Lucky: Does winning a golf tournament come down to skill or chance? http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/moneygolf/2010/08/dead_solid_lucky.html http://www.dartmouth.edu/~stats/rendleman.pdf Tiger was 3 and 0 in playoffs and had a 1 stroke victory and three 2 stroke victories and relatively few seconds. Tiger capitalized at a remarkable rate when he was in contention. Whereas Jack still had a high win rate but not even in the same stratosphere as Tiger's rate when he was in contention.

Okay. Agreed. Here is the quote you responded to "For example, I don't give a whole lot of weight to regular events." I am having trouble seeing how your response is even remotely connected to anything I have ever said. I can rephrase it. "Majors are the yardstick that I use to measure greatness, and I give little weight to winning the BC Open or Colonial." Dominance only reflects how a person did for a period of time. Dwight Gooden was dominant. Dwight Gooden did not have a great career. John Smoltz was never dominant. John Smoltz had a HOF career. I measure greatness as the entire body of work The other problem is making a guesstimate on level of competition. Old Tom Morris was dominant. I feel like the competition was not sufficient to make the claim that he is an all time great. I think career numbers taking into consideration level of competition is the best yardstick.

What information or arguments have I ignored? Seriously. Give an example. I think it is completely the opposite I think posts like your's are very condescending. The reasonable arguments that I do disagree with are value judgments. For example, I don't give a whole lot of weight to regular events. That is a difference in values that won't be settled. That can't be settled with debating facts. Truthfully, I have watched maybe 5 regular tour events on TV in 15 years. I don't care about them in the same way I couldn't tell you have many on Grand Slams Roger Federer has won. Or the dominance thing. I give no weight to dominance. I don't care even a little bit about it. That's a value judgment I have. What I do find amusing is the inconsistency of putting Phil ahead of Watson and Tiger ahead of Jack. Watson was clearly better in his prime than Phil in his prime. He dominated. He won six POYs. But he also stopped winning at young age. Wheres the argument for Phil is he was second 11 times in majors and had a better total body of work because of his longevity. The consistent arguments (ignoring Hogan) would either be 1. Tiger 2. Jack 3. Watson 4. Phil or 1. Jack 2. Tiger 3. Phil 4. Watson

Most elite golfers even in previous eras had relatively short careers. That isn't a new thing. Arnold, Watson, Seve, etc What made Jack "Jack" is that he was still playing pretty well in his early 40s. Jack's ball striking stats from 40 to 46 are amazing. He still was in the top 5 in GIR almost every year. He drove the ball great. That literally has zero to do with my interest on the topic. Zero point zero. Usually my automatic view is top current players are better than previous generations in almost every sport. That is what makes this topic interesting to me. I saw the major stat for Jack (18,19,9) and Googled to see if other people saw that obviously dominating stat and came to this thread. The truthful answer I like reading about successful people. Overall, I am kind of indifferent to both Jack and Tiger. I don't have a strong like of dislike of either. I put them in the same category as Jack Welch or Warren Buffett. Just interesting people to read about.