GOAT of golf -- Tiger or Jack?

galaxy27

golf is my jam. but because very few on here even remotely care about the sport, i don't have many opportunities to talk about it.

that said, i'd love opinions on this from peeps not named galaxy27. i'm not even going to answer my own question until later -- right now i just want to hear from the masses. no pressure to elaborate, but if you did...........in the immortal words of Lumbergh...........that would be great.

so, who you got? the tiger or the golden bear? and why?

Darin

Jack.
Tiger was on his way but due to a few different issues didn’t get there. I seriously believe Nike was the start of his downfall. Money became more. Important than golf. I started thinking how can he focus and improve at golf when he spends so much time making Nike commercials. Then there was the drinking, cheating, bad back etc.
Jacks focus puts him on top.

doubledragon

First of all, I like the fact that you did this, being a fan of boxing I can sympathize with your desire to talk about a sport that no one else seems to want to talk about. That being said, I am going to go with Jack Nicklaus, 73 PGA tour victories, 18 majors. Tiger has what, 82 PGA and 15 majors. You also have to look at Jack's competition, he had guys that won multiple majors gunning for him, guys that knew how to win the big one. Week in and week out, from the early 1960’s through the mid 1980’s, he was staring down the likes of Arnold Palmer (seven majors), Billy Casper (three), Tom Watson (eight), Lee Trevino (six), Gary Player (nine), Seve Ballesteros (five), Raymond Floyd (four), Hale Irwin (three) and Julius Boros (three). Jack was also more consistent, As far as individual major tournament statistics go, over the span of time it took both Jack and Tiger to reach their first 14 major victories, the comparison looks something like this:

Jack: 55 starts, 14 wins, 42 top-tens, 37 top-fives, 32 top-threes and 11 runner-ups.

Tiger: 53 starts, 14 wins, 29 top-tens, 25 top-fives, 21 top-threes and five runner ups.

galaxy27

@Darin
@doubledragon

BLUEJAYWAY

Tough call. Saw more of Tiger than Jack on the tube. Read books on Tiger and Jack. Guess there are different ways to determine your choice. Pure stats,Personality,Faults, etc. Can combine all the ways or just determine solely on stats. So until Tiger is done I will refrain my final choice. BTW Galaxy I do follow the sport and look forward to your commentary. I did have Viktor H. on top last week at 12-1. Have Hoge/Theegala this week in the shootout.

Darin

Also a btw from me…….
Galaxy you think nobody wants to talk about golf here, try being a fan of womens golf like me!
Since getting Annika’s auto many years ago at the us open in Kansas I have watched them get better and better. Hope Nelly comes back strong next year and gets 5+ wins.🏌️‍♀️

fergie23

Tiger's competition was vastly superior to what Jack had to play against. The average golfer during Tiger's career is so much better than during Jack's career. The better golfers during Jack's era won more often since they played inferior competition. That said, it really is a question of peak vs career. I think Tiger is/was a better and more dominant golfer but Jack didn't have the valleys Tiger has had.

Additionally, I think Tiger's inability to come from behind in majors is a mark against him. He is/was the greatest frontrunner in golf history but he only once came from behind in the last round of a major to win. I found it inexplicable during his career how often he failed to make a Sunday charge to win at the majors. He made plenty of Sunday charges to get into contention but until his last major win, never actually won.

For me the big "what if" with Tiger is that he abandoned the best swing in golf history due to his fear of injury yet still ended up getting injured. Adam Scott has virtually the same swing as Tiger's peak yet didn't have any of the injury problems that Tiger insisted that swing would cause. I feel like Tiger reinvented his swing so many times just to show that he could do it. It is really a testament to how incredible he was that he was basically the best golfer in the world with 4 different golf swings, I don't think we will see anything like it again.

Robb

coinkat

There simply is no GOAT in Golf.

I would be very careful what you write about competition in Golf in the 1960s and 1970s. Jack played against terrific talent- so many greats that many may not remember- Billy Casper and Tom Weiskopf- just to name two. Jack did not benefit from the significant changes that have evolved in golf club design. Jack used persimmon head woods as did just about everyone else on the PGA Tour back in the day.

Tiger has a very significant place in golf. So does Ben Hogan and Sam Snead. And talk about painful comebacks, Hogan's recovery from his car cash with a bus was more compelling than the Woods incident. If you want to talk about "what ifs"- Had Hogan not nearly killed, he likely would have had even a greater career.

As for greatest swings, it's Sam Snead

coolstanley

Just like in Tennis, whomever has the most grand slams is the GOAT.

Alfonz24

Bobby Orr

craig44

I would agree that the fastest golfer to ever skate the fairway was Bobby Orr. His career was just too short though, so for that reason, I have to go with Jack.

coinkat

Trying to decide whether a 3 iron or 2 iron would be the best hockey stick to use skating down fairways. I suspect Orr would pull a 1 iron out of the bag just to have the last word.

coinkat

In golf... It's about who consistently plays well OVER TIME and not about who always wins. PGA Golf is you against everyone else. And stats simply are unable to capture or comprehend that.

Darin

@coolstanley said:
Just like in Tennis, whomever has the most grand slams is the GOAT.

Bobby jones

Only golfer with the slam

Maywood

The competition angle should be ignored because Nicklaus played against a group of fantastic players week after week, but even if we consider that Tiger played against better players there is a bigger point to consider --- equipment. I grew up playing golf in the late 1960's when there were still clubs being used that had wooden shafts and the heads on the woods were tiny by comparison to what these guys use today. Look at a modern driver and consider the size of the sweet spot, it's probably bigger than the entire club face that the Bear was using.

Also, isn't golf a more psychological game than anything else?? Golfers with great physical ability cannot master the game because they can't master themselves. That's where Tiger failed!!! He had/has the major title championship in his sights and can't get there even when he was a relatively young man. At his one-time pace he should have blown past Nicklaus but he lost the battle within.

I watched a lot of golf in the 1960's and 1970's and it's harder to watch today.

coinkat

What Hogan accomplished in 1953 makes the accomplishments of Jones laughable at best. While Jones was a great player, he chose to design courses instead. Great swing, great player, and did so much for golf but he simply is not in the running if there was to be a GOAT named.

As for Maywood's comments... I would rather that he left golf club technology to me and I will leave the psychological component to him.

Darin

Coinkat, I didn’t say jones was the best I only said he’s the only one with a slam even if one component was the us amateur

coinkat

And Hogan won 3 of 4 majors in 1953 after being nearly killed in a car accident, Without question, what Hogan did was perhaps among the greatest comebacks in Sports history. I don't believe Hogan competed in the 1953 PGA so you cannot win the Slam unless you are able to compete.

galaxy27

granted this was written in 2016, but the overwhelming majority of these are still intact

there's dominance, and then there's this

some of these records shatter my mind to pieces

https://www.golfchannel.com/article/golf-central-blog/stats-incredible-tigers-40-greatest-numerical-records#:~:text=Stats incredible: Tiger's 40 greatest numerical records 1,Tour (a .526 win percentage). ... More items

coinkat

For those of you who simply are unaware of Hogan's car accident- please google it or look at the history here on this forum as I have posted it before and I am not going to continuously link an image of his Hogan's Cadillac that was hit head on by a bus.

JoeBanzai

@Maywood said:
The competition angle should be ignored because Nicklaus played against a group of fantastic players week after week, but even if we consider that Tiger played against better players there is a bigger point to consider --- equipment. I grew up playing golf in the late 1960's when there were still clubs being used that had wooden shafts and the heads on the woods were tiny by comparison to what these guys use today. Look at a modern driver and consider the size of the sweet spot, it's probably bigger than the entire club face that the Bear was using.

Also, isn't golf a more psychological game than anything else?? Golfers with great physical ability cannot master the game because they can't master themselves. That's where Tiger failed!!! He had/has the major title championship in his sights and can't get there even when he was a relatively young man. At his one-time pace he should have blown past Nicklaus but he lost the battle within.

I watched a lot of golf in the 1960's and 1970's and it's harder to watch today.

Good comment on equipment. My dad loved to golf, so I took it up to spend time with him.
I remember the driver as having a club face about the size of a quarter.
I grew up and had a family of my own, not golfing for many years. After the long layoff, I started golfing with dad again.
I bought some new clubs and when I saw the driver, I said "look dad, a Volkswagen on a stick!". You can hit your drives blindfolded now.
Can you imagine Arnie using modern day clubs? It would be a beautiful thing!
To answer the OP.
Jack is better than Tiger.

Maywood

@JoeBanzai said: Can you imagine Arnie using modern day clubs?

No more than I can imagine Tiger or the other youngsters using clubs from the 1960's. It would sober them all right up.

coinkat

Readers Digest condensed version- I am leaving so much out to keep it brief:

The evolution of golf club technology can start at an earlier time, but for purposes of what is being discussed here we can start with "blade" irons perfected by Toney Penna as well as Tommy Armour for MacGregor in the 1940s- Wilson and others followed. These clubs had a small sweet spot and it was all about the precision of the swing and letting the club head do the work. MacGregor also made some of the finest persimmon head woods and those were a favorite on the tour until the age of medal woods decades later. There is a difference between what Snead, Hogan and Nelson used in the 1940s and what what was used by Jack and others in the 1960s.

The real changes came with Ping and Lynx. And from that point, technology expanded by other companies like Callaway and Cleveland among others significantly just over the past 25 years.

Just for fun google Tommy Armour MacGregor golf clubs - but seek out models from the 1940s to get the full effect and compare them to the Big Berthas and ask yourself, which clubs would you rather use?

Hydrant

Neither Tiger or Jack. The GOAT of golf?......Easy,......Our in-house man......GALIXICO!.....WHO ELSE COULD IT BE!

This is dedication personified Galixico! That counts for a lot...

Just one question.......

Is that gator your caddy?....

Hydrant

Galixico, Help me out. I don't know crap about golf. So, I've always been puzzled about what the term "Driver" means. The only thing that I can come up with is this......

Or this...

Or....

Am I Close?...

Maywood

@coinkat said: These clubs had a small sweet spot and it was all about the precision of the swing and letting the club head do the work.

This was what I was alluding to in my post above yours, that the clubs in use today are quite a bit more forgiving of a poor swing. To play 60-70 years ago the swing needed to be perfectly repeated or a golfer would find himself down on the leader board or out of a tournament at the cut. Today that same imperfect swing just means a shorter drive.

Another thing that I think matters is the shape of the courses today, they are immaculately groomed. There are better hybrids of grass available and better equipment. I haven't played in almost 10 years because of shoulder problems but the playing conditions on even some public courses are outstanding compared to what they were like when I started.

coinkat

I think those that are reading this thread really need to be aware of the evolution and progression of golf club technology. And in all fairness, it next to impossible to give the subject the attention it deserves and three to four sentences as that simply does not pass the straight face test. Key people, companies and the clubs that made the game what it is need some recognition.

Just some further commentary about courses today... courses are prepped well in advance of tournaments- especially the US Open. Over the past 30 years, the rough has progressively become a greater challenge to the extent that missing the fairway can be problematic... as in very problematic