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GolfSwami

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  1. Tom Watson's peak ability possibilty surpasses Jack. He won 6 PGA Tour No he did not. That is factually false. Just on the face, what you just wrote should immediately seem absurd to you. You are golf pro. Have you not followed golf the last 15 years at all?
  2. Jack's total output is way ahead. Jack third and 1st in strokes gained at age 43 and 44. If this were debated like baseball no one would think Tiger is the GOAT. When I looked up Jack's 83 and 84 strokes gained, he had 14 top 10s in 28 events in just those two years he was "non-existent". (And he had 15 the two years before that and won two majors three years before) I was curious to see how many top 10s Tiger has had since 2014. He has had 13 top 10s in a decade.
  3. I am killing brain cells by thinking about this and responding but I looked up the data out of curiosity. Jack was third in True Strokes Gained in 1983 and 1st in the world in 1984. I would say that qualifies as existence. Jack did have a big drop off after age 44. But Tiger had a big drop after age 32 with a sporadic handful of good years after that time. Jack was in the McCormack top 10 to age 44. Tiger was ranked like 1400th in the world in his mid 30s. The chart you put up is a chart of nothing. Tiger has more wins. No one is debating that. There is a big difference between not winning on tour and not making cuts in majors and not winning but finishing second in majors.
  4. Moot not mute. Jack had a significantly longer career. It is gaslighting and nuts to say otherwise. I am not even going to try to refute with an avalanche of data because it would be giving sanction to a beyond silly view.
  5. Jack didn't face 10 year olds. Tom Watson was runner up at the 2009 British Open. He did however face weaker competition overall. I am not missing any point. I have read your thread. I never said Jack was better. Tiger was better at his peak. Jack has a better record even adjusted for field strength. What you are missing is Jack was consistently better for approximately a decade longer. You are completely ignoring the horrible stretch Tiger had. The attached images are not because of field strength. My reasoning is nothing like that and I have given you no reason to think that.
  6. 1. Hale Irwin. Don't need to go through numerous other examples. https://vault.si.com/vault/1995/02/06/hale-and-hearty 2.I don't care what former athletes say, I don't care what Jack says on any topic. But as a matter of record. Jack has never said the top guys he played with in the 70s would struggle in the 90s. He in fact said the opposite. He said the guys Tiger faced at the top were weaker an after some hurt feelings with Ernie Els took it back. He's even said Bobby Jones would do well. It doesn't make him right but it what he said. 3. I am factoring in competition. The odds Tiger would have 37 top 2s over the same span are zero. The odds he would have had 30 top 2s over the same time are not good. You can make the emojis and insults you want. It is your site. But the odds are zero. And not zero as in it is an opinion or there is some uncertainty. It is zero as in it is an impossibility for him to have 37 top 2s.
  7. Majors are the primary yardstick that most people use. No one cares about winning some 30 person tour championship or some defunct tournament with 50 people. Those are exhibitions. I use other sports to show that I have a coherent thought process because this debate seems fraught with emotion because of the names. Jack and Tiger are just nouns to me. I have no emotional attachment to either one. The thought process would be no different in evaluating Jeongeun Kim5 or Jeongeun Kim6. It is not hard to comprehend. I even gave you a helpful example of Clemson football so that you would understand. If you can't understand that, life is going to be too much for you. Charlie Munger Quote: “Without numerical fluency, in the part of life most of us inhibit, you are like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking conte...” “Without numerical fluency, in the part of life most of us inhibit, you are like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.” — Charlie Munger quotes from QuoteFancy.com
  8. I didn't disregard it at all. I acknowledged and I am very well aware that the British Open often didn't have the best players (which was still true in the 90s but to a lesser extent), the PGA Championship had a lot of club pros and golf in general was a much less viable profession so the fields were more top heavy. Clemson plays college football in the ACC. The ACC is a much weaker conference than the SEC and Big Ten. Clemson often had great teams that were discounted because people used the same thinking as you. Just because the SEC is tougher doesn't imply that every team ore even the top teams are better. This conversation would be more relevant if Jack only had a slightly better major record. The gap between Jack and Tiger in majors records is massive. Tiger's 50th place finishes and DNPs aren't magically becoming 2nds in the 60s and 70s.
  9. Tiger was way more dominant. Tiger won more tournaments against deeper fields in a compressed period of times Anyone who disagrees with that statement is clearly wrong. But does that make Tiger the greatest? To you maybe. Not to those of us who combine dominance with longevity. Travis Kelce and Rob Gronkowski were clearly better tight ends at their peak but the GOAT is Tony Gonzalez. He made 14 Pro Bowls and was All Pro 10 times. Gronk was only 5 and 4 on those stats. Who is the greater point guard Isiah Thomas or John Stockton? Stockton didn't win any championships but he is third all time in VORP, top 10 in Win Shares and 40th in PER. He was excellent for 19 years. Isiah is around 60th in VORP and outside the top 100 in other advanced metrics. Jack's total output, particularly in majors, is lightyears beyond Tiger. They aren't close even when you adjust for field strength. Jack has 73 top 10s in majors. Tiger barely has that many total cuts in majors. If Tiger started his career in 1960, the odds are 0.0000% he would have Jack's overall record in the majors if his career trajectory were the same. Tiger would not get to 50 top 10s in majors let alone 73 based on how his career played out. You don't have to agree valuing overall output with dominance is the best way to decide. It is subjective. But saying Tiger has the better major record because fields were weaker is clearly wrong. Jack's strokes gained in the majors are so far ahead, that no adjustment for field strength gets Tiger in the ballpark. Jack has 37 top 2s in majors. Tiger barely has that many top 10s. There were no shortage of guys in the 70s who would be top players in the late 90s, who would have provided plenty of resistance to Tiger. And the simple way to know this is those guys from the 70s were often still relevant playing against Tiger.
  10. It is interesting how unpredictable it is on who will make it. I remember all of the people who I thought were great players like Ty Tryon, James Oh, Christo Greyling, Ryan Hybl. None of them got very far at all. It is also interesting to see the number of small school guys that weren't prominent junior players and just decent college players who end up having long careers in professional golf. Dustin Johnson is from the same era and I don't remember ever hearing his name even once.
  11. A) 8400 people responded to the first poll question. 55% said Ruth would be average or worse. The correct answer is Babe Ruth would be a superstar. Saying that Babe Ruth would be a below average major leaguer would be like saying Arisotle would be a below average college student if he were alive today. Bill James explains why that would be the case. On Babe Ruth Lost In Time | Articles | Bill James Online B) Jesse Owens would be the fastest man alive today now that Usain Bolt no longer races. If you took 1936 Jesse Owens with no additional training and ran on the same track with starting blocks and the same shoes, he would be less than one stride slower than Usain Bolt. This was originally put forward in 2014and then the CBC tested the idea with a bronze medalist running a 100m on the same track surface without starting blocks and replicas of Owens' shoes. Today's Fastest Sprinters Would Probably Have A Hard Time Beating Jesse Owens In A Race Canada's fastest man vs. one of the all-time greats. Humans are not evolving at nearly the rate many like to think. Most gains are from technology, knowledge that people from any era would easily pick up (e.g the turn in swimming) and more people are specializing in sports that match their body types.
  12. Interesting poll results. I would have guessed near 100% would say Koepka. That seems like the "obvious" answer. Dustin Johnson has 3 fewer majors and 3 fewer top fives in majors. He does have more top 10s though he is six years older. The poll question feels comparable to Norman 2 majors vs Faldo 6 majors. Norman was definitely a more talented player. But does anyone really rank Norman over Faldo when you are 4 majors back?
  13. On this Masters weekend, I feel like it worth considering two questions that have answers that are both solvable. The first question can be solved with intuition that can be translated into mathematical assumptions. You can Google the answer. The second question can be solved with biomechanical analysis so we actually know with close to certainty how fast Owens would be under the same track conditions as a modern sprinter. I think the answers if properly understood are relevant to this thread. A) If Babe Ruth were alive today would he be: 1. A superstar in the Mike Trout/Shohei Ohtani mold 2. An All Star level player 3. A player around the league average 4. Not a major league baseball player B) Where would Jesse Owens rank today: 1. The current fastest person in the world 2. An Olympic caliber sprinter 3. Not an Olympian but a good college sprinter 4. High school kids would beat him
  14. I think it matters a lot. 2nds, top 5s, top 10s total cuts made all contribute to a player's greatness. My criteria is the same criteria I use for basketball or baseball. I measure greatness by a combination of total output and then take the best seven years years output and average the two. Nicklaus has an estimated 270-290 strokes gained edge on Tiger in majors. The average major win produces around 14 strokes gained. Tiger's output is the equivalent of being about 20 major wins short. Tiger had a very compressed career. Lot of blank space after age 32. No adjustment for field strength gets Tiger to number 1. Win streaks, cut streaks, leading money winner, Player of the Year are all things I don't even consider. To the extent they contribute to total output they are part of strokes gained. Baseball has a lot of examples where voting and extraneous things that don't really matter are used to evaluate talent. Bert Blyleven made two All Star teams and never won a Cy Young. He is a top 10 pitcher post dead ball era.
  15. One Major, 12 major top 10s post age 32
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