As the risk of sounding like a dumbass, I just want to know what people who actually know about and/or play golf think about this. Is he hands down the best? Has he yet to surpass Nicklaus? I don't really know much about golf but I'm a Tiger fan.

He just played the best 10-11 years that's ever been played. But in my book, he still needs more longevity to be considered the best ever - which partly means hanging around long enough to get Jack's major record (which I think he'll have before he's 40). He's surpassed what Jack did by the age of 33, but he hasn't completely blown it out of the water by so much that it overwhelms everything Jack did after that age (which included winning another 7 majors).

[This message has been edited by Bob the Enzyte Guy (edited 6/19/2008 8:37a).]

Racist Pig

EDIT: I forgot the obligatory "Idiot", also. You're probably not voting for Hussein Obama, either.

Gun safety is no accident.

[This message has been edited by Shotgun Ag (edited 6/19/2008 9:42a).]

i prefer "dumb elitist bigot", which is what I was called on the other thread.

You can tell I clearly hate the guy, based on all of the compliments I've given to his game and him as a person in these threads.


[This message has been edited by Bob the Enzyte Guy (edited 6/19/2008 10:38a).]

"Dumb elitist Bigot" would have taken me too long to type. I went with the shorter "Racist Pig"

For what it's worth, I agree with a lot of what you have said, but I still "root" for the Tiger, AND of course respect your right to "root" against him. I agree that the media hypes it all up too much - as they do wirh most other things.

Gun safety is no accident.

He's up there with cassius clay, he can beat you with his talent or his mind...best ever

He is the best and it's really not that close. I'm sorry, but people that won't call him the best until he wins his 19th are ridiculous. No one has ever played golf this well, ever. In the 10 or 11 years he's been playing, his winning percentage, his major winning percentage, and some other stats are so far better than anyone else's in history that I don't even understand how this can be a real argument.

Plus, Tiger only plays in the 13 or so most difficult events of the year. Imagine how many more wins he'd have and how much lower his scoring average would be if he played in some of the other tournaments where some spare wins it with a score of -22.

To steal someone else's analogy, who was better, MJ or Karl Malone? MJ of course. But Malone scored more points than MJ! Well, sometimes there's more to it than just one arbitrary number.

Agree with watty. Tiger is the best golfer of all time. Whether or not he can stay at this level as long as Jack stayed at his top form remains to be seen. Although Jack had some good competition, the depth of competition Tiger faces is much greater.

If Tiger's knee repair and rehab go well, he should be much better with a repaired ACL and healed stress fractures than he has been since he tore the ACL last summer. Considering that he won the PGA and 5 more tournaments including the US Open on a FUBAR knee, the rest of the tour could be in really deep dookie.

Well, of course, Watty. Anyone who disagrees with you is ridiculous. We get it now.

Gun safety is no accident.

it's partly a real argument because they are playing against different fields. i think Tiger faces a deeper field of decent quality players, but the upper echelon is far weaker than what Jack faced. Jack was facing guys like Player and Watson, with 8-9 major wins each. Arnie is up there with 7. Trevino is up there with 6. Seve is up there with 5.

I look at the top 7-10 players in the official world golf rankings right now and it's a freaking joke compared to the group I just listed. I'll take Watson and Trevino, you can have Steve Stricker and Justin Rose. Phil's a great player and clearly the established #2, but I can't put him ahead of any of those old schoolers I just listed.

The mental fortitude (and lack thereof) of some of the guys near the top these days is just sickening. One of Mickelson's biggest challenges has been what's between his ears. And when one of the supposedly top 6 players in the world is Sergio Garcia, who is Seve minus a brain and a heart, I just can't buy the top competition is as good now.

It's hard to compare the eras, but I just know they were both extremely dominant through their early 30's and there is still plenty of time for Tiger to solidify himself as the best ever.

[This message has been edited by Bob the Enzyte Guy (edited 6/19/2008 1:30p).]

quote:

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The mental fortitude (and lack thereof) of some of the guys near the top these days is just sickening. One of Mickelson's biggest challenges has been what's between his ears. And when one of the supposedly top 6 players in the world is Sergio Garcia, who is Seve minus a brain and a heart, I just can't buy the top competition is as good now.

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This is why I called them all pu**ies.

Shotgun- What do you disagree with in my post?

Watty,
Well, prety much all three paragraphs - especially the part about those who disagree with you on this being ridiculous. It's a pretty arrogant stance to take...but, to each his own.

EDIT: Just to further clarify, I'm one of those who belives it will require more major victories as well as regular tournament vctories to be called the "greatest of all time". If I were a gambler, I'd bet that he will make it - just not there yet.

Gun safety is no accident.

[This message has been edited by Shotgun Ag (edited 6/19/2008 10:02p).]

The answer to the question posed is YES.

Jack Nicklaus

Tour Victories:

* PGA Tour: 73
* Senior PGA Tour
* (113 total victories worldwide)
* 286 Top Ten Finishes and Money leader 8 years

Major Championships:

* Professional: 18
* Masters: 1963, 1965, 1966, 1972, 1975, 1986
* U.S. Open: 1962, 1967, 1972, 1980
* British Open: 1966, 1970, 1978
* PGA Championship: 1963, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1980

Major championship performances

* Starts - 163
* Wins - 18
* 2nd place finishes - 19
* Top 3 finishes - 46
* Top 5 finishes - 57
* Top 10 finishes - 73
* Longest streak of top-10s in majors - 13


Tiger Woods

Tour Victories:

* 144 Top 10 Finishes and money leader 8 times

Major Championships:

* Professional: 14
* Masters: 1997, 2001, 2002, 2005
* U.S. Open: 2000, 2002, 2008
* British Open: 2000, 2005, 2006
* PGA Championship: 1999, 2000, 2006, 2007

Major championship performances

* Starts - 54
* Wins - 14
* 2nd place - 5
* Top 3 - 3
* Top 5 - 3
* Top 10 - 4

[This message has been edited by AtlAgDX (edited 6/20/2008 12:37p).]

Yep, so far..

AtlAgDX, are you not counting this years us open because it went to overtime?

Shotgun- So do you also think Emmitt is better than Barry Sanders? He has more yards.

Do you also think Karl Malone is better than Jordan? He has more points.

Is total victories your only criteria? If so, why? That makes no sense. If Tiger wins 17 majors and 80 tournaments in half the time it took Jack to win 18 and 83 (or whatever the number is, I just threw those out there), you would still be hanging on to that "Jack is the best ever" claim?

There's a difference between "greatest of all time" and "guy with the most wins, etc." Right?

in a sport where a guy can be near his peak for over 20 years, some of us just want to see him do it for a little longer. Tiger has hit milestones before Jack did, but to some of us, the gap isn't all that wide to make everythign else Jack ever did completely moot. I'm not sure why that is difficult to understand or why it makes someone an idiot. And I'd go back to the point that Jack faced at least 4-5+ guys on a regular basis over his career that were better that the #2's Tiger has competed against.

The best guys Tiger has faced are the mental midget David Duval, who can only be found somewhere on the slopes of Aspen these days, and Phil, who took forever to break through and is still prone to many head-scratchign meltdowns.

The Malone-Jordan is one of the worst sports argument strawmen I've ever seen.



[This message has been edited by Bob the Enzyte Guy (edited 6/20/2008 10:03a).]

I think some of y'all just have different definitions of GOAT than some others do. To me, he is the best golfer ever, just based on what he can do, how talented he is, etc., AND he has had the best career ever. He has done more in 11 years than anyone else except for one guy could do in their whole careers, and that one guy has just barely outdone Tiger, but took almost twice as long to do it.

I realize I could be accused of over-appreciating what is happening currently, but I don't think I am. I think the Jack lovers are over-appreciating the past and not being willing to admit what Tiger is.

But that's just me.

I mean, I understand that there is something to the whole idea of getting 19 majors. But really, I just think that puts way too much focus on numbers rather than the reality of how much Tiger is dominating the world. Numbers are important, but only to an extent. And heck, Tiger's numbers are best ever. The only things that aren't are only short because he's only 32.

To change the Karl Malone analogy, Jordan was te best player of all time. He doesn't hold the total points record, he holds the scoring average record. Nicklaus is like Kareem, he holds the total majors record, but Tiger is Jordan, his scoring average (winning percentage, in his case) is tops.

I'm probably not going to change anyone's mind. It seems that the goup of people that are focused on nothing but the 18 majors are pretty rigid with that. That just seems very narrow to me.

quote:

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that one guy has just barely outdone Tiger, but took almost twice as long to do it

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Not to get carried away too much on major counts (but right or wrong, they do end up being the main measure of great players), Jack captured his 14th at age 35 vs. Tiger at 32. Like I've mentioned a few times, Tiger surpassed Jack but some of us just don't see it as him doubling up on him.

Jack was a freak in his day too. His length was unrivaled and he completely dominated some of the all-time greats. The jaw-dropping that is happening now was also happening back then.

I can definitely see both sides though. I don't think you are ridiculous for having your point of view.


[This message has been edited by Bob the Enzyte Guy (edited 6/20/2008 10:28a).]

I don't think the others are completely ridiculous, I guess that was a harsh choice of words. I do think I'm right, of course, but that's the point of discussion boards I suppose.

I actually like your insight (Bob) more than most because you seem to be reasonable.

On a slightly relevant note, regarding the competition, what do you think the rest of the top 10's majors count would be if Tiger didn't have any? Would they be pretty evenly spread, or would we find 2-4 players stepping up and getting those?

The real question I'm asking is, is today's competition really that much weaker than Jack's, or is Tiger really just crushing them like no one else ever has? Or is it just too much depth these days for anyone to really seperate themselves except for Tiger?

Thoughts?

And can we agree that Tiger is the best player ever, if not the owner of the best overall career just yet?

if there was no tiger, we would be arguing that phil is the greatest player of all time...bob, easy with the low blow on duval, for awhile he looked like the only guy that would compete with tiger, unfortunate he suffered from a disease he had no control over...els, singh, etc would have been just as good or better than all the guys in jacks era
point is tiger is so dominant that he makes everyone else look just ok
best golfer of all-time?
for one tournament i would choose tiger or bobby jones

I think the fields these days are deeper in decent players, but I do think there are far fewer great ones. And when it comes to majors, on a much bigger stage and tougher course conditions, those are the ones that make the difference and also explain why Jack finished 2nd as many times as he did.

From a purely statistical standpoint, I think Phil has only finished 2nd to Tiger in one major - the 2002 US Open at Bethpage. Maybe you throw one more his way and maybe one more to folks like Els and Vijay, but I don't think you'd see a drastic change in their major count. Adam Scott is the #3 player in the world and his best major finishes are 9th (Masters), 21st (US Open) , 8th (British), and 3rd (PGA). I think the wealth would be spread pretty far and guys would be topping out around 4, maybe 5, majors.

I look at players 2-10 and I see a lot of guys that seem struggle with the game mentally, guys that struggle with a major aspect of their game (Vijay Singh, and Sergio's flatstick issues are wellknown), and when bumped up against the old greats, they just don't measure up. A good chunk of that 2-10 list are made up of guys where not meeting expectations (or not meeting them for a long time) makes up a big part of their career story - Phil taking forever to get the monkey off his back, Els disappearing for several years now, Justin Rose never measuring up, Sergio never measuring up.

I do think some of Jack's competition came from rougher childhoods/backgrounds and they were also playing to put food on the table, both of which I think made them much tougher mentally than a lot of current top players that were babied from a young age. Player was (and is) a tough SOB. Trevino was a tough SOB from the 'hood and then spent 4 years in the Marines. I think they'd chew up and spit out a lot of the top current players.


[This message has been edited by Bob the Enzyte Guy (edited 6/20/2008 11:38a).]

quote:

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easy with the low blow on duval, for awhile he looked like the only guy that would compete with tiger, unfortunate he suffered from a disease he had no control over

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Since when is "can't find the fairway" a disease? My low blow is completely true. If you want to find Duval, you have to go to CO. He did struggle with some injuries - like many players did, but he also lost his desire. He's outright admitted winning the British wasn't as fulfilling as he thought it'd be, and he kind of lost his passion for it all after that.

Lee Trevino got struck by effing lightning. Now that is something that will jack your **** up.

[This message has been edited by Bob the Enzyte Guy (edited 6/20/2008 11:28a).]

Bob - I appreciate your thoughts here. Are 2-10 just all flawed or if Tiger weren't here would they be winning much much more?

It seems that the pool of players, particularly worldwide, is far larger than during Jack's time. How many colleges had golf teams then? How many courses? Today's participation level is at historical highs. I know some of that is driven by Tiger's popularity (hence the crowded courses you complain about). But wasn't participating rising strongly when Tiger played at Stanford?

Not trying to be argumentative. I just wonder if your assertion that Jack's competition was better might not be so clear. My father has played golf for over 50 years (he was much more of an Arnie guy than a Jack guy) but he seems to respect Tiger's talent more than Jack's. I remember he used to talk about how Jack could hit the ball - and few could match him. But today many can hit as long as Tiger.

quote:

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Are 2-10 just all flawed or if Tiger weren't here would they be winning much much more?

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They'd win more without Tiger, but like I mentioned above, I don't think you'd see any night and day change in their totals. And I'm also talking more than numbers. I just think guys like Player, Palmer, Trevino, etc. simply had fewer holes in their games than some of these guys do, and I think they are mentally tougher. And so much of this game is played between the ears, I think that makes a huge difference in their performance.

I think several of the 2-10 range guys are much more similar to Tom Weiskopf. Very good player, could knock the piss out of the ball, won a major and finished 2nd or 3rd in many othre majors. But the all-around game, and particularly the part between the ears, just wasn't there consistently enough to make him one of the greats.

Also, like I mentioned above, I do think there are more "decent" players out there now than there were in the past. But the upper echelon is what doesn't match up imo. We've got a lot more pampered robots that play solid golf but can't reach that level.


[This message has been edited by Bob the Enzyte Guy (edited 6/20/2008 1:36p).]

Yes - I don't recall any golf courses getting Jack proof.

Ding, Ding, Ding! The reason today's players do not have many majors, is that Tiger had dominated the majors since 1997 like no one else ever has in that time span. Arnie, my golf hero in my youth, won a lot of his majors before Jack got going good. Jack was great, but his greatest feat was longevity, he was never as good at his peak as Tiger is, and has said that.

And on another note, Retief the Goose is the biggest dumb A$$ of all time. Fitting that he is from the apartheid capital of the world.

[This message has been edited by fireinthehole (edited 6/20/2008 9:38p).]

[This message has been edited by fireinthehole (edited 6/20/2008 9:47p).]

Tiger is the best but that doesn't diminish Jack at all to me. And Jack did have courses attempt "Jack proofing" in his day(The Masters at Augusta National said they moved bunkers farther out from the tees because he was driving right over them in his prime).

*********************************************************************************************************************
"Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women."

quote:

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Ding, Ding, Ding! The reason today's players do not have many majors, is that Tiger had dominated the majors since 1997 like no one else ever has in that time span. Arnie, my golf hero in my youth, won a lot of his majors before Jack got going good. Jack was great, but his greatest feat was longevity, he was never as good at his peak as Tiger is, and has said that.

---

Tiger has won 3 more majors than Jack had at age 32. No math puts Phil, Vijay, and Ernie (the only guys with 3) all in the 5-7 major range in a world without Tiger. Gary Player won most of his 9 during Jack's peak years. Trevino won most of his 6 in Jack's peak years. Jack didn't take long to get good seeing as he nearly won the US Open the first time he played it. Arnie competed against Jack for all but one of his majors (his 2nd was basically Jack's coming out party), although I'll give you that he won about half of his before Jack really peaked. Jack had to beat great, established players early in his career, great players that came on the scene at a similar time as he did (Trevino and Player), and then against more greats like like Tom Watson and Seve while Jack was still in the second half of his prime.

Not to mention, Els, Phil, and Vijay all had at least 7 or so years of pre-Tiger time to win something before he showed up. Els was the only one that did.

Jack calls Tiger the best. Tiger calls Jack the best. I think you have to throw both of their claims out of this debate.


[This message has been edited by Bob the Enzyte Guy (edited 6/21/2008 3:15p).]

Top 3 of all time are IMO:

1a. Jack - Numbers and longevity keep him in the A spot for now.

1b. Tiger - Nobody, even Jack is as physically and mentally dominating. Knees are a big question as to how long he will continue to re-write history.

3. Bobby Jones - if he decided to play professionally he could have done what Jack and Tiger have done to the games popularity. How many amateurs from 1960-2008 could win the grand slam (only three tourneys in his day).

With guys like Hogan, Palmer, Nelson, Trevino, Seve, Player, etc in a solid group behind, but well ahead of where most of todays "challengers" are.

I'm thinking Tiger is in the discussion of best athlete of all time...not just golf!

Hard to compare the various sports, but if domination over a period of time is a criteria, Tiger is right there with most anyone.

I still think that the "best" in an individuals type sport is a combination of pure winning and endurance.

Most of your golf experts still have Jack with the crown. I agree.

Tiger has a 3 in 4 shot of surpassing Jack.......BUT.........his physical injuries seem to be mounting.

grandslam for bobby was 4
us open, british open, us amateur, british amateur