Question:
I’ll bet his record for "recovery" in a tournament where he’s played about as badly as he’s capable of is more like about 75-for-89. And that’s pretty amazing.
And that’s a big part of why he wins the scoring title each year, which brings up the single golf statistic I personally find most amazing, number of times Nicklaus won the scoring title: 0. Hard to imagine how a player could be that dominant for such a long time without leading that statistic even one year. Of course Jack had Palmer and Casper to contend with (they traded the title for eight years running, if I recall) and then Trevino and Watson, but it boggles my poor mind that Nicklaus never took this title. Captain Slice
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And remember, that 8-89 record he has when trailing after 54 holes includes tournaments in which he’s been behind by 1 and tournaments in which he’s been behind by 15.
Okay, let’s amplify this even more. In a round where everyone is equal and starts with the same score and there is a field of, say, 71, everyone has 70:1 odds of winning. But spot that field 1 or more strokes against Tiger, and he has 10:1 odds of winning. He’s 7 times better than everyone else, even when he lets them use their handicap. –Blair "2=1, if you do it right."
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And that’s a big part of why he wins the scoring title each year, which brings up the single golf statistic I personally find most amazing, number of times Nicklaus won the scoring title: 0. Hard to imagine how a player could be that dominant for such a long time without leading that statistic even one year. Of course Jack had Palmer and Casper to contend with (they traded the title for eight years running, if I recall) and then Trevino and Watson, but it boggles my poor mind that Nicklaus never took this title.
Well, as I was pointing out elsewhere, he says he sandbagged himself in the weekday rounds of a tournament so he could peak on the weekend. Maybe it failed often enough that it swamped the lower scores he made in his wins. Which makes it the other big difference between Jack and Tiger: Tiger would wipe up the money list with Jack if they played together. –Blair "These guys get to play golf all week. I get to play when my wrists heal…"
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And remember, that 8-89 record he has when trailing after 54 holes includes tournaments in which he’s been behind by 1 and tournaments in which he’s been behind by 15. I think a far more amazing statistic, and one which has been completely missed here, is how many times he’s been hopelessly out of contention starting the final round, ranking 20th-30th only to finish in the top 5 or top 10. If you look at his career and see how few times he’s finished out of the top 10 (on average, he only misses the top ten 2-3 times per year), I’ll bet his record for "recovery" in a tournament where he’s played about as badly as he’s capable of is more like about 75-for-89. And that’s pretty amazing.
[snip] It continues to amaze me that he can squeek by a cut on Friday, and be pursuing the lead on a Sunday. Yeah, he rarely actually wins, but he can frequently get close. We frequently see discussions about the relative strength of the overall field with respect to the field Jack had to play against. I’d be curious to know the relative distance between the cut and the leader after Friday in Jack’s day and now. My impression is that the distance is closing. i.e. everyone is piled much closer to the leader indicating there are more people "almost as good" as the leader.
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[snip] how about you look at what the stat is telling you in reality how many tournaments has Tiger played in the last 7 years? I would estimate 160. That means he’s in the lead or ahead about 70 times out of 160 or close to 50% of the time he’s at the top. Isn’t that amazing ? Wrong He’s played nearer 130 He’s 8-89 when trailing (sometimes way back) and he’s lead 30 times out of 130+ which is less than 25% But he’s 28-2 when in that position. THAT is amazing.
Yes and no. It’s amazing he wins that much. It’s even more amazing that he is even in a position to win that much. But because he is in a position to win that much, if he _ISN’T_ in that position it’s because things aren’t going well for him so it would be particularly surprising that he does win. He’s 8-89 when trailing on Sunday. So 8 times he won when he may have been playing weaker than normal all weekend but STILL managed to play well enough to come from behind and win. Think of all the guys who play as well as they can and don’t win 8 times in a CAREER. Tiger has had off weekends and STILL won. THAT’S amazing.
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And remember, that 8-89 record he has when trailing after 54 holes includes tournaments in which he’s been behind by 1 and tournaments in which he’s been behind by 15. I think a far more amazing statistic, and one which has been completely missed here, is how many times he’s been hopelessly out of contention starting the final round, ranking 20th-30th only to finish in the top 5 or top 10. If you look at his career and see how few times he’s finished out of the top 10 (on average, he only misses the top ten 2-3 times per year), I’ll bet his record for "recovery" in a tournament where he’s played about as badly as he’s capable of is more like about 75-for-89. And that’s pretty amazing. Randy
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – [snip] how about you look at what the stat is telling you in reality how many tournaments has Tiger played in the last 7 years? I would estimate 160. That means he’s in the lead or ahead about 70 times out of 160 or close to 50% of the time he’s at the top. Isn’t that amazing ? Wrong He’s played nearer 130 He’s 8-89 when trailing (sometimes way back) and he’s lead 30 times out of 130+ which is less than 25% But he’s 28-2 when in that position. THAT is amazing. Yes and no. It’s amazing he wins that much. It’s even more amazing that he is even in a position to win that much. But because he is in a position to win that much, if he _ISN’T_ in that position it’s because things aren’t going well for him so it would be particularly surprising that he does win. He’s 8-89 when trailing on Sunday. So 8 times he won when he may have been playing weaker than normal all weekend but STILL managed to play well enough to come from behind and win. Think of all the guys who play as well as they can and don’t win 8 times in a CAREER. Tiger has had off weekends and STILL won. THAT’S amazing.
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– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – This article says that Tiger is only 8-89 in stroke-play tournaments when trailing after 54 holes. That comes out to an 8% winning percentage, which sounds low, but is it truly bad? I don’t know where to get this information, but I wonder what the winning % of other top golfers are when trailing after 54 holes. Because if the other top golfers % is only 6% or 7%, then Tiger’s looking pretty good. http://sports.espn.go.com/golf/masters/story?id=1538913 how about you look at what the stat is telling you in reality how many tournaments has Tiger played in the last 7 years? I would estimate 160. That means he’s in the lead or ahead about 70 times out of 160 or close to 50% of the time he’s at the top. Isn’t that amazing ?
Wrong He’s played nearer 130 He’s 8-89 when trailing (sometimes way back) and he’s lead 30 times out of 130+ which is less than 25% But he’s 28-2 when in that position. THAT is amazing.
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This article says that Tiger is only 8-89 in stroke-play tournaments when trailing after 54 holes. That comes out to an 8% winning percentage, which sounds low, but is it truly bad? I don’t know where to get this information, but I wonder what the winning % of other top golfers are when trailing after 54 holes. Because if the other top golfers % is only 6% or 7%, then Tiger’s looking pretty good. http://sports.espn.go.com/golf/masters/story?id=1538913
how about you look at what the stat is telling you in reality how many tournaments has Tiger played in the last 7 years? I would estimate 160. That means he’s in the lead or ahead about 70 times out of 160 or close to 50% of the time he’s at the top. Isn’t that amazing ? — Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
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– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – "Dean" wrote … This article says that Tiger is only 8-89 in stroke-play tournaments when trailing after 54 holes. That comes out to an 8% winning percentage, which sounds low, but is it truly bad? I don’t know where to get this information, but I wonder what the winning % of other top golfers are when trailing after 54 holes. Because if the other top golfers % is only 6% or 7%, then Tiger’s looking pretty good. http://sports.espn.go.com/golf/masters/story?id=1538913 It would be very difficult to gather this information. I’m sure it’s in the TOUR’s database, but you’d have to go digging into its core to dig it up, and it’s not available on PGATOUR.com. But when you stop and consider how many players there are who haven’t won 8 tournaments in their entire career (the number of times Tiger has won when coming from behind on Sunday), his 8% winning percentages in tournaments he’s entered when trailing after 3 rounds isn’t all that bad. Think of all the players who haven’t won 8 percent of their tournaments whether from behind or in front. 8% is better than 0%, and I’ll just about guarantee you that fully half (maybe as many as 75%) of all players who have ever had TOUR cards have 1 or 0 career victories. To further put this in some perspective, think of it this way: There are only about 50 players all-time who have won 15+ titles in their career. The list I have ranks only the top 50 all-time winners and ties, so I’m not sure how far down the rankings you’d have to go to find those who have won 8 titles (the number Tiger has won from behind) to begin extrapolating possibilities. But think about it — in comparison to the thousands of players who have had TOUR cards, even if only for a year, the total number of players with 8+ career victories (100? 140?) must be a pretty small percentage of all those who have teed it up as fully exempt members. Then you factor in the number of times they won from behind versus how many times they won overall. Five wins in a 15 year career is a magnificent career for 95% of all players. Averaging about 24 events per season (24×15) means (if I’ve done my math right) 5 wins in 360 starts. That’s winning 1.3% of the tournaments entered, whether coming from behind or in front. That would be a guy like, say, Fred Funk, for example (or someone comparable). That doesn’t answer your question directly, but this will get you a little closer to it… Tiger has won "only" 8% of the time when he’s trailed after 54 holes. Below on this list, you’ll see all the players currently active on the PGA TOUR who have won 8 or more titles. Alongside their name is the number of titles they’ve won and the first year they played full-time on TOUR. You can get an estimate to compare in the following manner: Calculate the average number of events each player entered per year (a good number to work with, I’d say, is about 23 or 24), or go to PGATOUR.com and you can find out exactly how many tournaments they entered each year. What you won’t be able to tell is how many of their career titles were come-from-behind wins and how many were won playing with the 54-hole lead. But for the sake of putting Tiger’s 8% come-from-behind winning percentage into context, assume for the moment that ALL of these players’ titles were won when coming from behind (you can rest assured that’s not true, but play along for the sake of perspective). From that data, you can then project what their winning percentage is assuming that ALL their titles were come-from-behind wins. I’m quite certain that you’ll find Tiger’s 8% come-from-behind winning percentage stacks up quite nicely against most (probably not all) of these players, especially when you consider that some of these guys have been around on the PGA TOUR since golf clubs were actually made of WOOD. <gasp! PLAYER – career wins – first year full time on PGA TOUR Azinger – 12 – ‘82 (DNP regularly in ‘83 or ‘94) Calcavecchia – 10 – ‘82 Cook – 11 – ‘80 Couples – 14 – ‘81 Duval – 13 – ‘95 Elkington – 10 – ‘87 Els – 12 – ‘94 Faxon – 8* – ‘84 Frost – 10 – ‘85 Haas – 9 – ‘77 Hoch – 11 – ‘80 Janzen – 8 – ‘90 S. Jones – 8 – ‘85 (DNP regularly in ‘94 due to injury) Leonard – 8 – ‘94 Love III – 16 – ‘85 Mickelson – 21 – ‘92 O’Meara – 16 – ‘81 Pavin – 14 – ‘82 Price – 16 – ‘83 Singh – 12 – ‘93 Stadler – 12 – ‘77 Strange – 17 – ‘77 Sutton – 14 – ‘82 Woods 37 – ‘96 *Media Guide lists Faxon with 8 wins. PGATOUR.com credits him with only 7, and doesn’t count the ‘86 Provident Classic. Not sure why. I believe it was an official event. If it wasn’t an official event, then cross him off the list.) Randy
Do you actually have a life?
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This article says that Tiger is only 8-89 in stroke-play tournaments when trailing after 54 holes. That comes out to an 8% winning percentage, which sounds low, but is it truly bad? I don’t know where to get this information, but I wonder what the winning % of other top golfers are when trailing after 54 holes. Because if the other top golfers % is only 6% or 7%, then Tiger’s looking pretty good. http://sports.espn.go.com/golf/masters/story?id=1538913
I guess playing with numbers is one of the things that makes sports interesting, but this one is a little off base. Firstly, Tiger Woods plays all the top events, and in his career has played in only a few second tier events, and those very early in his career. And in any event, not too many golfers have a winning percentage of 8% on the US PGA tour period! If your typical PGA Tour player plays in 20 tournaments a year, that’s 200 tournaments in 10 years; he should have 16 US PGA Tour wins per 10 years? Who does that or better these days? Mickleson, Woods and…and….and..????? While I hate all the cheesy hype from commentators, the fact is that no one has ever played golf as well as Tiger Woods has in his PGA Tour career to date. He is the successor to the Jones (best to that point) and Nicklaus (best to that point) in the evolution of the game. He is the guy who takes the advances in the game (instruction, equipment, groundskeeping, etc), and plays the best game allowed in his time. I personally wonder if golf can advance any further and still remain a compelling game; however time will tell. Some thought steel shafts killed the game…and some probably still do, but IMHO, Snead, Hogan, Nicklaus, Palmer, etc….to Woods have played some pretty good golf! Rob — GOP (Golf Only Pledge…I will only initiate golf related threads) Service is the rent we pay for being RSG Masters 2003 ( http://home.att.net/~frostback2002 )
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"Dean" wrote … This article says that Tiger is only 8-89 in stroke-play tournaments when trailing after 54 holes. That comes out to an 8% winning percentage, which sounds low, but is it truly bad? I don’t know where to get this information, but I wonder what the winning % of other top golfers are when trailing after 54 holes. Because if the other top golfers % is only 6% or 7%, then Tiger’s looking pretty good. http://sports.espn.go.com/golf/masters/story?id=1538913
It would be very difficult to gather this information. I’m sure it’s in the TOUR’s database, but you’d have to go digging into its core to dig it up, and it’s not available on PGATOUR.com. But when you stop and consider how many players there are who haven’t won 8 tournaments in their entire career (the number of times Tiger has won when coming from behind on Sunday), his 8% winning percentages in tournaments he’s entered when trailing after 3 rounds isn’t all that bad. Think of all the players who haven’t won 8 percent of their tournaments whether from behind or in front. 8% is better than 0%, and I’ll just about guarantee you that fully half (maybe as many as 75%) of all players who have ever had TOUR cards have 1 or 0 career victories. To further put this in some perspective, think of it this way: There are only about 50 players all-time who have won 15+ titles in their career. The list I have ranks only the top 50 all-time winners and ties, so I’m not sure how far down the rankings you’d have to go to find those who have won 8 titles (the number Tiger has won from behind) to begin extrapolating possibilities. But think about it — in comparison to the thousands of players who have had TOUR cards, even if only for a year, the total number of players with 8+ career victories (100? 140?) must be a pretty small percentage of all those who have teed it up as fully exempt members. Then you factor in the number of times they won from behind versus how many times they won overall. Five wins in a 15 year career is a magnificent career for 95% of all players. Averaging about 24 events per season (24×15) means (if I’ve done my math right) 5 wins in 360 starts. That’s winning 1.3% of the tournaments entered, whether coming from behind or in front. That would be a guy like, say, Fred Funk, for example (or someone comparable). That doesn’t answer your question directly, but this will get you a little closer to it… Tiger has won "only" 8% of the time when he’s trailed after 54 holes. Below on this list, you’ll see all the players currently active on the PGA TOUR who have won 8 or more titles. Alongside their name is the number of titles they’ve won and the first year they played full-time on TOUR. You can get an estimate to compare in the following manner: Calculate the average number of events each player entered per year (a good number to work with, I’d say, is about 23 or 24), or go to PGATOUR.com and you can find out exactly how many tournaments they entered each year. What you won’t be able to tell is how many of their career titles were come-from-behind wins and how many were won playing with the 54-hole lead. But for the sake of putting Tiger’s 8% come-from-behind winning percentage into context, assume for the moment that ALL of these players’ titles were won when coming from behind (you can rest assured that’s not true, but play along for the sake of perspective). From that data, you can then project what their winning percentage is assuming that ALL their titles were come-from-behind wins. I’m quite certain that you’ll find Tiger’s 8% come-from-behind winning percentage stacks up quite nicely against most (probably not all) of these players, especially when you consider that some of these guys have been around on the PGA TOUR since golf clubs were actually made of WOOD. <gasp! PLAYER – career wins – first year full time on PGA TOUR Azinger – 12 – ‘82 (DNP regularly in ‘83 or ‘94) Calcavecchia – 10 – ‘82 Cook – 11 – ‘80 Couples – 14 – ‘81 Duval – 13 – ‘95 Elkington – 10 – ‘87 Els – 12 – ‘94 Faxon – 8* – ‘84 Frost – 10 – ‘85 Haas – 9 – ‘77 Hoch – 11 – ‘80 Janzen – 8 – ‘90 S. Jones – 8 – ‘85 (DNP regularly in ‘94 due to injury) Leonard – 8 – ‘94 Love III – 16 – ‘85 Mickelson – 21 – ‘92 O’Meara – 16 – ‘81 Pavin – 14 – ‘82 Price – 16 – ‘83 Singh – 12 – ‘93 Stadler – 12 – ‘77 Strange – 17 – ‘77 Sutton – 14 – ‘82 Woods 37 – ‘96 *Media Guide lists Faxon with 8 wins. PGATOUR.com credits him with only 7, and doesn’t count the ‘86 Provident Classic. Not sure why. I believe it was an official event. If it wasn’t an official event, then cross him off the list.) Randy
Response:
This article says that Tiger is only 8-89 in stroke-play tournaments when trailing after 54 holes. That comes out to an 8% winning percentage, which sounds low, but is it truly bad? I don’t know where to get this information, but I wonder what the winning % of other top golfers are when trailing after 54 holes. Because if the other top golfers % is only 6% or 7%, then Tiger’s looking pretty good. http://sports.espn.go.com/golf/masters/story?id=1538913