Horns247 Board

Honest opinion from those who think Tiger played better competition.
Tom Kite
Greg Norman
Tom Watson
Arnold Palmer
Gary Player
Lee Trevino
Johnny Miller.

Are there better golfers today than those?

I would certainly say there are. Kite doesn't belong on that list. The issue with this argument for me is that Tiger's competition (and Tiger for that matter) aren't done playing like Jack's era. So if the end all be all is major totals, well we really don't have much to talk about. My argument against major totals are there are certainly more guys capable of winning them today so the numbers could be skewed. Jack didn't play against anywhere near the competition Tiger will have played against from across the pond. The top 3 players in the world aren't Americans.

Rory is as talented as they come but he's so young. He could be one of the all-time greats or he could flame out. Phil certainly belongs on any list. He's as good as anyone Jack played against. No question.

Jack falls into an interesting place as far as competition goes. He really didn't spend much time playing against Palmer in his prime. Nor Watson. They were bookends to his career.

Total Majors won by runner up to Jack (37)

Gary Player(9)
Arnold Palmer(7)
Ray Floyd(4)
Bruce Crampton(4)
Billy Casper(3)
Ben Crenshaw(2)
Johnny Miller(2)
Doug Sanders(2)
Tom Kite(1)
Tom Weiskopf(1)
Tommy Jacobs(1)
Tony Lema(1)

Total Majors won by runner up to Tiger (15)
Phil Mickleson(3)
Ernie Els(3)
Tom Kite(1)
Retief Goosen(2)
Chris DeMarco(2)
David Duval(1)
Woody Austin(1)
Shaun Micheel(1)

9 of top 25 golfers of All Time finished 2nd to Jack in a major.
1 of top 25 golfers of all time finished 2nd to Tiger

Lord Byron might, just might, get the nod ahead of Hogan. But I doubt it.

SMH at the ESPN-like stats being brought to defend Jack. Right now Jack is on the mountain top, if TIger passes him in majors won then that goes to Tiger. It's really that simple.

You know Gerry is absent from this board when he's nowhere to be found 30+ posts into a TW thread.

Same guy compiled some interesting info on Jack's second place finishes........

With all the hoopla about Tiger versus Jack, how Jack’s 19 seconds shows how much other players of his era stepped up, etc. it seemed like looking at Jack’s second place finishes warranted closer scrutiny.

After looking closer, they seemed to fit into 3 categories:

Runaways (6) – Jack was 2nd or T2 but never had a chance

Close but not that close (5) – Jack was 2nd or T2 but it wasn’t as close as it looked

Close calls (8) - either Jack blew it (which happened more often than many realize), the competitor made some great shots, or some combination thereof.

Before laying out the categories, a few observations:

o Trevino and Watson were the only players that fought Jack tooth and nail down the stretch and won.

o While some players clearly did step up against Jack, Jack did play his share of giveaway.

o Jack realistically could have won the close calls. Of these he gave away about half, so perhaps Jack lost 4-5 majors due to competitors really stepping up.

Here they are:

Runaways:

’64 Masters – Palmer won going away by 6 strokes; Jack was T2 with Dave Marr.

’64 Open – Tony Lema won going away by 5 strokes. Jack finished 2nd but was never in it.

’64 PGA – Bobby Nickols won by 3 strokes going wire-to-wire; Jack was T2 with Palmer.

’68 US Open – Trevino won going away by 4 strokes; first player to shoot four US Open rounds in the 60’s; Jack had to shoot a final round 67 to get within 4 strokes. Never close.

’76 Open – Johnny Miller won going away by 6 strokes. Jack shot 69 the last round to get a back-door T2 with Seve Ballesteros, who shot 74 the last round.

’79 Open – Seve Ballesteros won going away by 3 strokes and it wasn’t that close. Jack got a back-door T2, but Crenshaw was the only serious challenger until he double-bogeyed the 17th hole.

Close, but not that close:

’65 PGA – Dave Marr won by two – Jack tied second with Billy Casper. The pivotal hole was the par 5 11th where Jack bogeyed with two poor chips while Marr birdied.

’67 Open – Robert De Vicenzo beat Jack by two strokes – no one else was close. Can you say Rich Beem or Michael Campbell?

’68 Open – Gary Player beats Jack and Bob Charles by two strokes. Player actually battled all day with Charles and Billy Casper. Jack was the chaser all day and never could get closer than 2 shots.

’81 Masters – Jack and Johnny Miller were T2 behind Watson by 2 strokes. Jack had to birdie 15 and 16 to get within 2 shots of Watson, who played a conservative back 9 and cruised home.

’83 PGA – Jack lost by a stroke to Hal Sutton. Sutton had a 5-stroke lead with 7 to play. Sutton got a little sloppy and let Jack get close, but never let him close enough to tie for the lead.

Close calls

’60 US Open – While Palmer ‘charged’ to victory by 2 shots, Jack had to work pretty hard to lose this one. With a one-shot lead, he missed an 18-inch putt on the 13th hole, 3-putted the 14th hole, missed a 3-footer on 16, then missed a 5-footer on 18. Ben Hogan was later quoted as saying he played with a kid 'who should have won by 10 shots’.

71 Masters – Tied for the lead after 3 rounds, Jack 3-putted 4 greens in route to an indifferent 72 and lost by two shots to Charles Coody; Johnny Miller was T2 with Nicklaus.

’71 US Open – Trevino caught Jack with a final-round 69 and won the playoff the next day by 3. Remember that in the playoff Jack gave away the lead early by failing to get out of bunkers on both #2 and #3.

’72 Open – Well chronicled end to the Grand Slam hopes as Jack lost by one to Trevino. Tied for the lead the last round, Jack bogeyed the 16th hole and then failed to birdie the par 5 17th. Trevino of course did hit the miracle chip on 17 to stay one ahead, while Tony Jacklin fell apart and finished 3rd..

’74 PGA – Jack missed a makeable putt on 18 that would have tied Trevino (even though according to legend Jack never missed a putt he needed on 18), thus losing by a shot.

’77 Masters – Watson birdied 17 to take the lead. Jack, playing the group ahead of Watson, then bogeyed 18 and Watson cruised home with a 2-shot victory.

’77 Open – Well chronicled duel in the sun between Nicklaus and Watson. Remember though, that Jack missed a 4-foot birdie putt on 17 that would have kept him tied for the lead, as Watson did birdie 17.

’82 US Open – Well chronicled loss to Watson when Watson chipped in on 17, then also birdied 18 to win by 2.

I don't really care about any of the secondary stuff in terms of this discussion. Does Tiger seem like a gentleman on the golf course? Not to my eye but I'm not inside the ropes walking with him either. When you are on tv more than anyone else, everything will be public. Did Jack cuss after bad shots or take some turf out of the ground? I'd wager he did.

He can sleep with as many Denny's waitresses as he wants to and I won't care one way or the other, but when he throws clubs I find it somewhat embarrassing. I grew up playing in my Dad's Sunday group at the local club and I would've gotten my butt whipped for acting like that, so keeping my temper in check has been ingrained in me since then.

Some people are just more emotional than others, I'd rather see an athlete show passion than be stoic all the time.

I'm definitely not suggesting that he shouldn't have the occasional outburst because we're all guilty of that. I was allowed some leeway growing up and heard a lot of four letter words on the course. But throwing my clubs and acting like a child was frowned upon and I learned that lesson early on. If I wanted to play with the adults, I had to act like one. I don't want to watch a bunch of statues out there either, but there is an unspoken rule on far you let your emotions run. Maybe I'm just old school though.

Or how about Sergio for destroying a bunker...but he didn't actually throw a club, so this must be ok by you? But if Tiger would do this, he's a POS, right?

That was a very embarrassing moment for Sergio and I'm betting he would take it back if he could. My only issue with Tiger is that this is a recurring theme with him. That said, it's not like I turn off the TV in disgust when he acts immature. Never suggested he was a POS either, so not sure where that came from.