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Everyone knows the biggest debate surrounding golf is who is the better player, Tiger or Jack Nicklaus? This is often a heated and interesting debate but it falls into that category of things hard to compare because of the large time differential. For those of you who don’t know golf, Jack Nicklaus currently holds the Professional Golfers’ Association Majors Record (PGA Championship [5], The Masters [6], US Open[4], British Open[3]; total=18). Tiger is currently hot on his heels with 12 PGA Majors victories. What Tiger has already accomplished in his 10+ seasons as a professional is unreal. Jack hit 12 majors after 13 seasons, but only 6 majors in the last 22 years of his career. That gives Tiger too much time to just annihilate that record.
With all this considered I still have to make the claim that Jack is the better golfer… for now. To be the best you have to own the records and although Tiger is well above the pace, no cigar yet. Also to be considered are these facts:
1. Jack Nicklaus played in the 60’s and didn’t have this incredible technology we have today. That made the game more skillful in my opinion. The ‘sweet spot’ was about the size of a quarter then, it’s almost a baseball now!
2. What the Majors record overshadows is the fact that Jack has 19 runner-up finishes in Majors. He also has 9 third place finishes. What this means is Jack was almost always in contention while Tiger seems to ebb and flow quite a bit.
4 comments:
What are Tiger's stats regarding second and third place finishes?
Also, aren't there many more players now? Doesn't that make Tiger's accomplishments even more impressive?
I agree that Jack is the better all time golfer. Even though there is a large time differential, the technology doesn't seem to make as much difference to me as competition in other sports. Every player is golfing on the same course, and throughout the years all the courses have been equally hard. Also, even though Tiger is on pace to break the records (as is A-Rod in Baseball) he still hasn't proven his consistancy throughout his whole carreer, and just isn't there yet. Though I do believe Tiger will someday be the best golfer of all time, if he stays consistant and does not get distracted by his beautiful wife and millions, millions of dollars.
Mike, Tiger's 2nd place stats are surprisingly hard to find. I saw that as of May of this year he has only 21 runner-up finishes in his entire career, let alone majors. He had four 2nd or 3rd place finishes in majors as of August 2006. The reason is easy to assume here. Mostly, Nicklaus was content to play conservative golf and wait for others to make mistakes, an area in which they usually obliged. It was that tactful approach that allowed Nicklaus to record 19 second-place finishes in the majors to go along with his 18 victories. Tiger has always been a win-or-lose minded guy. He may own records for margins of victory but 2nd place finishes don't seem to mean much to him. This is a mentality that Tiger is changing as of late, realizing that he doesn't need to overpower every opponent to claim victories.
And as to the fact that there are more players on Tour now, I think that is a moot point. Jack had many competitors (Palmer, Trevino, Player) that challenged him for every tourney despite the smaller fields. If Tiger is playing his best golf no one can hang with him. There are no REAL rivalries for him to contend with (and I don't want to hear about Phil being a rival... Phil has boobs!) And no, in my opinion that doesn't mean that Tiger must be the better player. It simply means that he has evolved at a faster rate than the rest of the field.
Call me crazy, but I think discussing Tiger as a more highly evolved being lends more credibility to his talent than to Jack's opponents. In any case, the field HAS become much deeper -- a progression shown in every sport, especially during the post Cold War era (the last 17 years) which has been marked by rapid globalization in culture, business, and sports.
The claim that Jack has more talent because he used inferior equipment is moot, because he competed against guys using similar quality clubs, and his success is relative to his competition. I think fairways have been lengthened over time, as well, to account for better clubs.
Moreover, we can agree that Tiger has no legit rival -- that is a huge comparative distinction in Tiger's favor.
I'm not sure how long the Golden Bear played ball-golf, but Tiger has many more years ahead of him. The fact that this discussion can take place at this point in his career seems to indicate that he has achieved quasi-Jordanesque greatness ALREADY. By the time he retires, I think he will be able to have a similar nickname: The Gold Standard.
Sure, anything can happen in the future, but barring an alien invasion or nuclear war, that's what I see happening.
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