The Tiger Woods Thread

Minderbinder

He shouldn't have got married.

slave1

He shouldn't have got caught

CalamariFritti

Ye that didn't help, but his body would have been f***ed either way. No pun intended.

We would have been spared the public humiliation, but he'd still be the same (non) golfer physically.

HighLine

Good to see him swinging a club again

https://twitter.com/TigerWoods/status/916752949002604544

tommypepper

HighLine wrote: »

Good to see him swinging a club again

https://twitter.com/TigerWoods/status/916752949002604544

FFS its his nth tease to keep his sponsors paying him the coin.

He's just a business now nothing more.
And Mcilroy is headed the same way if he doesn't cop on

A Shaved Duck?

tommypepper wrote: »

FFS its his nth tease to keep his sponsors paying him the coin.

He's just a business now nothing more.
And Mcilroy is headed the same way if he doesn't cop on

What are you talking about... a thread about tiger and you find a way to have a dig at mcilroy.

ffs.

AnneFrank

Nice to see him hitting balls again, even if he could play socially again would be a huge plus,
I think he'll make a great commentator if he ever decides to go down that route he's a real student of the game

Enigma IE

I doubt we will ever see anyone as dominant as Tiger again. He was a winning machine.

Ninap

I actually think the game has moved on significantly from when Tiger dominated. Then, he was able to outdrive almost everybody, and putt better too. Now all the leading guys are huge off the tee, and never/rarely miss from within 10-12 feet. Even peak Tiger would not dominate Spieth, Johnson, Thomas etc. That said, would love to see him back playing at some point.

slave1

Ha ha, Tiger peak was unreal, go back and have a look at his ranking points at peak, his iron play was unreal, he’d take all those guys for breakfast

m1ck007

Ninap wrote: »

I actually think the game has moved on significantly from when Tiger dominated. Then, he was able to outdrive almost everybody, and putt better too. Now all the leading guys are huge off the tee, and never/rarely miss from within 10-12 feet. Even peak Tiger would not dominate Spieth, Johnson, Thomas etc. That said, would love to see him back playing at some point.

Tiger would destroy justin thomas 9 times out of 10.

tommypepper

Ninap wrote: »

Now all the leading guys are huge off the tee, and never/rarely miss from within 10-12 feet. Even peak Tiger would not dominate Spieth, Johnson, Thomas etc. That said, would love to see him back playing at some point.

Yes the game is different mostly because of the driver heads, balls and what they know now about maxing launch spin etc. But put most of the top modern pros on tigers equipment 1997 to 2006 then no chance. They wouldn't even be close to him. I'd like to see how spieth would do hitting a 975d with x100 or prolite shaft.

davo10

tommypepper wrote: »

Yes the game is different mostly because of the driver heads, balls and what they know now about maxing launch spin etc. But put most of the top modern pros on tigers equipment 1997 to 2006 then no chance. They wouldn't even be close to him. I'd like to see how spieth would do hitting a 975d with x100 or prolite shaft.

Absolutely right, it's like comparing soccer/Gaelic players from different eras. If Woods was starting off now, he would have the benefit of today's equipment and given his mental strength and will to win, he probably would have the edge over his opponents.

I still think that as good a player as Woods was, it was what was between his ears that made him better than everyone else. Speith seems to be the closest around to that mentality at the moment.

CalamariFritti

With Tiger at some point it almost got boring watching golf tournaments. He wasn't just the best, he was much much better than that.

Tilikum

Ninap wrote: »

I actually think the game has moved on significantly from when Tiger dominated. Then, he was able to outdrive almost everybody, and putt better too. Now all the leading guys are huge off the tee, and never/rarely miss from within 10-12 feet. Even peak Tiger would not dominate Spieth, Johnson, Thomas etc. That said, would love to see him back playing at some point.

Harrington recently spoke about Tiger on the radio. Can't remember exactly what it was. Something like Tiger's club head speed/ball speed was faster 20 years ago than the big guys are averaging now.

'Even peak Tiger wouldn't dominate Spieth, Johnson, Thomas' is about the dumbest comment I've read in quite a while'

Tiger was a freak. We'll never see his like again.

Deeper Blue

You'd wonder if some people ever actually saw Woods play at his peak

He was in a different universe

He'd blow all today's best players away with ease

ligerdub

I don't think anyone is suggesting Woods would find himself as world number 2 or beyond in the present day.

What is fair to say though is that the gap between him and the rest would be smaller than in his time. The talent at the moment is outstanding. I suggest the gap would be a lot smaller.

Let's be honest here, aside from Tiger, only Mickelson and perhaps Els were the other really top class players in the Tiger era. There simply wasn't the depth of talent behind them as there is now either. Even players who had the talent there seemed to be a problem in so many of them not pushing on to better things. Guys like Steve Stricker and David Duval were seen as some of the top dogs back then, but you could tell they weren't real legacy players. They seemed almost distressed by the finish line.

If you take the Ryder Cup teams as an example and even the Presidents cup, take a look at the teams involved. There were usually a few guys down the bottom of the rosters who looked out of place. In the case of the Presidents cup the international team was woefully short, even at the top level. That's not the case anymore. Actually consider the US teams that Tiger played on, the US being a traditional golf powerhouse, despite Tiger being the best player in the world he ended up on the losing side nearly all the time. That must have been the worst vintage of US players ever.

Think of Tigers majors, he won some at a canter but let's say the ones which were battles, who was he up against? I recall his greatest duel was against (and fair play to him) Bob May. Who else, Chris Di Marco, Kenny Perry, Rocco Mediate, Woody Austin? The best one that he came through against was Sergio Garcia, a player who really should have won a lot more up til now. Granted Tiger won quite a few so easily that the competition seemed largely irrelevant. I can't help but feel that the lack of worry about anyone charging through was a major comfort factor though.

Let's also consider the time of Tiger's emergence. Faldo, Norman, Langer, Price, Love III, Tom Lehman, Olazabal were all hitting the end of their good days. There simply weren't players of the same ilk coming through.

Talk of him and his distance advantage was important but it was not where he won the tournaments. He won because he was able to relentlessly turn good positions into good scores and bad positions into par saves. His short game was his secret sauce of success. It's no surprise that he was particularly dominant on courses where accuracy was not as important and a short game was so important I.e. Augusta and St Andrews.

This isn't a dig at Tiger by the way, and it's certainly not his fault. He was the best player of his generation, he'd be the best player today if he were 26 again, but he'd not be winning 80 tournaments and 14 majors up against this group.

CalamariFritti

Tiger would beat Chuck Norris with one hand behind his back and on a broken leg!

davo10

ligerdub wrote: »

I don't think anyone is suggesting Woods would find himself as world number 2 or beyond in the present day.

What is fair to say though is that the gap between him and the rest would be smaller than in his time. The talent at the moment is outstanding. I suggest the gap would be a lot smaller.
.

Smaller perhaps but still huge. The talent is here now, but none of the current crop would come close to his mindset nor his consistency. If Woods and Nicklaus didn't win, they were nearly always in contention. It was extremely rare for them to miss cuts, there was some ridiculous stat that up until that night, Woods had only missed something like 2 cuts. Even when woods wasn't playing well, or injured, he still ground out some amazing results, he won a major with a fractured leg for gods sake, we don't see that today.

CalamariFritti

Spieth seems to have that doggedness too. The will to grind out a result no matter what and just not going away. He’s the closest I’ve seen since Tiger.

Tilikum

ligerdub wrote: »

I don't think anyone is suggesting Woods would find himself as world number 2 or beyond in the present day.

What is fair to say though is that the gap between him and the rest would be smaller than in his time. The talent at the moment is outstanding. I suggest the gap would be a lot smaller.

Let's be honest here, aside from Tiger, only Mickelson and perhaps Els were the other really top class players in the Tiger era. There simply wasn't the depth of talent behind them as there is now either. Even players who had the talent there seemed to be a problem in so many of them not pushing on to better things. Guys like Steve Stricker and David Duval were seen as some of the top dogs back then, but you could tell they weren't real legacy players. They seemed almost distressed by the finish line.

If you take the Ryder Cup teams as an example and even the Presidents cup, take a look at the teams involved. There were usually a few guys down the bottom of the rosters who looked out of place. In the case of the Presidents cup the international team was woefully short, even at the top level. That's not the case anymore. Actually consider the US teams that Tiger played on, the US being a traditional golf powerhouse, despite Tiger being the best player in the world he ended up on the losing side nearly all the time. That must have been the worst vintage of US players ever.

Think of Tigers majors, he won some at a canter but let's say the ones which were battles, who was he up against? I recall his greatest duel was against (and fair play to him) Bob May. Who else, Chris Di Marco, Kenny Perry, Rocco Mediate, Woody Austin? The best one that he came through against was Sergio Garcia, a player who really should have won a lot more up til now. Granted Tiger won quite a few so easily that the competition seemed largely irrelevant. I can't help but feel that the lack of worry about anyone charging through was a major comfort factor though.

Let's also consider the time of Tiger's emergence. Faldo, Norman, Langer, Price, Love III, Tom Lehman, Olazabal were all hitting the end of their good days. There simply weren't players of the same ilk coming through.

Talk of him and his distance advantage was important but it was not where he won the tournaments. He won because he was able to relentlessly turn good positions into good scores and bad positions into par saves. His short game was his secret sauce of success. It's no surprise that he was particularly dominant on courses where accuracy was not as important and a short game was so important I.e. Augusta and St Andrews.

This isn't a dig at Tiger by the way, and it's certainly not his fault. He was the best player of his generation, he'd be the best player today if he were 26 again, but he'd not be winning 80 tournaments and 14 majors up against this group.

Yes, David Duval.
13 tour wins.
British open winner
World #1
Shot 59
He's afraid of the finish line alright.

The same can be said with Jack's era. He had **** all to beat. But you haven't mentioned that. Tiger beat what put in front of, just like Jack did.
Jack himself said, Tiger's 14 majors were more impressive than his 18 as the fields were stronger. He also said he can't see anyone beating Tigers 14 from here on as in as the fields are stronger again.

You can talk about fields all you like but his scoring records/cut streak are ridiculous. That has **** all to do with the fields, that's him against the courses he was playing. He has destroyed Jack's records bar the majors. He played the best golf that's ever been seen.

Tiger is the greatest player that's ever played imo and I'm genuinely gutted that he'll never be the way he was again. I used to watch so much golf back then.

ligerdub

Exactly......and then what happened him? He completely lost the plot mentally.

Had he stayed in that mould then Tiger would have had a great adversary throughout his career but he didn't. His success was huge but was over in an instant. He went to world number 1 during the Tiger era if I remember correctly.

There's a great article about him on this subject. I think it was in Sports Illustrated this summer.

ligerdub

This wasn't about Tiger versus Jack, had it been that then I would have mentioned it. That wasn't the argument that was put to the forum.

It's about how dominant Tiger would be now.....and I think he'd be less dominant. As I said myself he'd still be number 1. I also said it wasn't his fault who his opponents were.

What's the problem?

Rikand

ligerdub wrote: »

Exactly......and then what happened him?

He fell in love, got married and had a scatter of kids.

his life priorities changed when he met his wife and golf went on the back burner. It's still on the back burner even now. He doesnt need the money. Playing the tour is just something he does for fun and if he gets to compete at the latter end of a tournie, then cool :cool:

Tilikum

ligerdub wrote: »

Exactly......and then what happened him? He completely lost the plot mentally.

Had he stayed in that mould then Tiger would have had a great adversary throughout his career but he didn't. His success was huge but was over in an instant. He went to world number 1 during the Tiger era if I remember correctly.

There's a great article about him on this subject. I think it was in Sports Illustrated this summer.

He had numerous injuries & suffered from vertigo, pretty much ending his career.

ligerdub

davo10 wrote:

Smaller perhaps but still huge. The talent is here now, but none of the current crop would come close to his mindset nor his consistency. If Woods and Nicklaus didn't win, they were nearly always in contention. It was extremely rare for them to miss cuts, there was some ridiculous stat that up until that night, Woods had only missed something like 2 cuts. Even when woods wasn't playing well, or injured, he still ground out some amazing results, he won a major with a fractured leg for gods sake, we don't see that today.

He was an incredible golfer......no doubt about that.

diomed

Tiger clearly possesses all of the physical tools and seemingly the mental qualities to rewrite the record books, which leaves only the questions of desire and physical well-being.
A friend of a friend of mine who owns professional videotape-editing equipment that measures motion in thousandths of a second compared the speed of Tiger's hips unwinding from the completion of the backswing to impact with a dozen or so other top tour players. Tiger was 20 percent faster than anyone else, and as much as 50 percent quicker than some players.

My Story. Jack Nicklaus. 1997

HighLine

Looks good.

https://twitter.com/TigerWoods/status/919669589725806592

CalamariFritti

The skinny legs on him.

slave1

Bit whippy I thought...