What is Digg?95 Comments
- imashmuck, on 01/28/2008, -0/+40I think it's just because he changes how other golfers have to play their game. The other guys have to be more aggressive and that throws them off.
- Zera, on 01/28/2008, -4/+38"If you assume Tiger is going to win, then the top prize available to you is $864,000 rather than $1.44 million. That beats the heck out of steak knives, but it's significantly less than the winner's take. Second place—among players who are not Tiger—gets $544,000 rather than $864,000, and so on."
This article is stupid..... If the $320,000 difference between second and third place isn't enough to motivate you, then I HIGHLY doubt the $600K difference between first and second is going to motivate you. And whatever happened to competing to WIN rather than for whatever prize sits there at the end of the competition. Stupid article. - iLemon, on 01/28/2008, -1/+30I think the government needs to step in and redistribute the strokes Tiger leaves on the golf course to less skilled golfers.
- Andrew33, on 01/28/2008, -3/+30tiger is the man
- bamafun, on 01/28/2008, -1/+23I'm sure it puts more pressure on the other golfers knowing they have to play their best to even come close to beating him.
- Jah30, on 01/28/2008, -3/+21What this tells me is that the rest of the golf world needs to step up their game and stop settling for 2nd place. Tiger must be bored with the lack of competition.
- andrewcsayer, on 01/28/2008, -1/+11"Who you playing against?"
"Lets see..Tiger Woods...oh *****". - cambob76, on 01/28/2008, -2/+10Tiger's got some sort of radioactive fog that follows him and makes other people worse at golf. Some say it came from outerspace and lives in Tiger's left big toe. Others reckon it's the fog itself that makes Tiger play so well. But the argument always follows that Tiger doesn't play well at all and that he just makes everyone else suck very very badly. If Tiger wasn't around, they say, most other top-ranked golfers would be breaking records themselves.
- conna, on 01/28/2008, -1/+9Golf is a game dependent on yourself. In a group, or in a tournament, or just by yourself, you have just yourself to blame for how good you do or bad you play. If you let the competition get inside your head, then your not ready to be playing with the pros. I would love for the chance to play against Tiger. To me it would be like shooting hoops with MJ.
- thanakar, on 01/28/2008, -0/+7Jack Nicklaus had the same imidating precense on the course as Tiger has. You either wilt or step up to the challenge. Tiger has done much good for the game and this article is a total disrespect to Tiger and other golfers as well.
- sq2shooter, on 01/28/2008, -3/+9Faulty logic. First, Tiger does not win every tournament and I doubt many of the players come to the tee box assuming he will win. The reason that the scores are lower when he is involved is pretty clear. He makes players press. They know they have to be one their A game to beat him when he is hitting it well. As a result, they take more risky shots than they normally would. This translates into lower scores because they are no longer playing their game. They are playing Tigers game and few are suited to do that. He takes players out of their game and that translates into more mistakes and more bogeys. Hell, you could argue that players are more motivated to beat him in a tournament than any other player in history.
- odiego, on 01/28/2008, -5/+10This guy is awesome. He makes this boring sport interesting by having a 10 stroke lead on Final Round!
- wisgator, on 01/28/2008, -0/+5Other golfers on tour probably have a range of thoughts going through their head when they see Tiger enter the same tournament they're in. Some probably think they can't win, while others think they have to play out of this world to beat him. Tiger can play average golf just like everybody else on tour. What 'scares' golfers is when Tiger is in top form. His best is 5x better than anyone else's best. When he has his swing where he likes it, is hitting fairways and sinking putts, he can destroy a field like no one else. He's done it throughout his career. If this were baseball, you'd walk him every time. I'd even walk him if the bases were loaded.
- antlerboy, on 01/28/2008, -1/+6maybe if you gave the second place winners steak knifes people would consider winning first place to be risky business.
- Zera, on 01/28/2008, -0/+5And a second thought about competition.. I would argue that anyone at this high of a level of competition has to not only LOVE the game, but LOVE competing to win. Greed alone doesn't get you to a championship of any sport. It's the love of the game that gets you out, day after day, decade after decade practicing, studying, training... and ALL of that time is out of the spotlight, at your own expense. It's not glamorous, and there's certainly no money in practice alone...
- Echelon2, on 01/28/2008, -1/+6God of the golf course.
- Zera, on 01/29/2008, -0/+4"Analyzing data from round-by-round scores from all PGA tournaments between 2002 and 2006 (over 20,000 player-rounds of golf), Brown finds that competitors fare less well—about an extra stroke per tournament—when Tiger is playing."
Okay, so one extra stroke for every 72 or holes (290 strokes or so @ par)..... That is an absurdly small amount. And when the article says "competitors fare less well" less well than WHAT?
1.) The average on that same course historically prior to Tiger? Well, that's an absurd comparison, hole placement, tee position, and WEATHER affect that, not to mention skill of previous years.
2.) The average score on PGA events that Tiger doesn't participate in? Well that's awfully simple, Tiger plays all the majors and not every PGA event, and therefore he's playing the harder courses, meaning other players do slightly better elsewhere.
What comparison is being made here? For the article to just say "competitors fare less well" and not say in what scenario makes the assertion meaningless. - arunforce, on 01/28/2008, -1/+5If you ever watch Golf, Woods rarely wins by a severe lead, sometimes he catches up in the last few holes. I remember 3-4 years ago, he was doing really bad that year, but he made a comeback.
Saying that Tiger gets bored is an overstatement, there are PLENTY of fine athletes playing Golf. - TsuruchiBrian, on 01/29/2008, -0/+4Statistics huh?
Are there any possible confounding factors?
Is this merely a correlation or has causation been proven somehow?
What are the sample sizes?
What is the standard deviation?
What is the residual error?
What is the confidence level?
Has a double blind study been done? Have there been any tournaments where players were unaware that they were playing against Tiger Woods to use as a control group?
It seems like something that is a proven fact should also have some data to go along with it. I am not saying this data doesn't exist, but I think it is probably a good thing to have some of these basic metrics before stating something is a statistical fact. - dan222555, on 01/28/2008, -1/+5I think the article makes the false assumption that this has more to do with some kind of emotional intimidation than it does with the actual game of golf. Saying the other players play worse when Tiger isn't in the field is a bit misleading. A lot of the events Tiger skips are the "easy" events. They generally have small purses and are played on easier courses and easier setup courses than the events he enters. Not only that but you have to consider the fact that when Tiger is in a tournament he's so good that the other golfers often have to attempt to elevate their game to what I would call an unstable level. When Tiger is playing well in order to chase him down they have to take a lot more risks then they normally would and attempt shots that they may not be comfortable with. So in an effort to match Tiger they risk playing poorly themselves.
- Zera, on 01/28/2008, -0/+4Oh and Tiger's PGA Tour win percentage is 25.3%, and his Major win percentage is 28.2%... Those are incredible numbers, but "assuming" Tiger is going to win every time is stupid in and of itself.
- inactive, on 01/28/2008, -0/+4yea, god forbid you have to actually read something.
- ganymede2010, on 01/28/2008, -0/+4Facing Tiger at Augusta is equivalent to a professional boxer facing a young Mike Tyson. It's that itimidating.
- JavertHolmes, on 01/28/2008, -0/+3http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFLGRidfFo4
Not a rickroll. - inactive, on 01/28/2008, -0/+3I think i'd rather shoot hoops with MJ. I'd hate to play a round with Tiger and he shoots a 62 and I hack up the course for 110.
- Hockey13, on 01/28/2008, -1/+4This is the same ***** logic the French government uses when it penalizes Amazon for providing their product cheaper than the rest. That somehow someone doing something better and more efficiently than someone else is "anti-competitive" is the most backward logic I can possibly imagine. That's the whole ***** point of being competitive.
- TsuruchiBrian, on 01/29/2008, -0/+3I understand the article also, and I think Zera is 100% right. It's not deep at all, it's just convoluted and stupid.
Does it even really matter who is at the top? There is always someone at the top, and he is always better than you unless you are him. In this case there is a guy named Tiger Woods at the top. This doesn't change anything.
I think if anything it inspires more people to play more golf and we will have a bigger pool of golfers, thereby increasing the chances that one may become better than Tiger. - stinkypyper, on 01/28/2008, -0/+3The scene from Glengarry Glen Ross referred too in the beginning of the article:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TROhlThs9qY
***** excellent. - usherzx, on 01/29/2008, -0/+2dog's are not allowed on the golf course, pyrotix.
fog, absolutely.. dog, not so much. - behindcurtain3, on 01/28/2008, -0/+2Anybody have a link to the statistics this article talks about?
- MindTrigger, on 01/28/2008, -1/+3"Coffee is for closers."
- Brucinius, on 01/29/2008, -0/+2That is what happens - people do just the bare minimum they can to get by. Have you looked at the person in the cubicle next to you lately?
- buddamus, on 01/28/2008, -0/+2Happy Gillmore, best golf movie ever
- Mier, on 01/28/2008, -2/+4If he's good then he's good. Don't handicap him just because you might get your feelings hurt. 5 gets 10 Tiger doesn't know what an HDMI port looks like and he still has to call the TV guy to hook it up. We all have our points his is golf.
- cuoops, on 01/29/2008, -0/+2Don't run your mouth......ask Rory Sabbatini.
- pyrotix, on 01/28/2008, -0/+2the radioactive dog theory is somewhat problematic, but i haven't seen very good evidence to the contrary
- lovedunks, on 01/29/2008, -0/+2Yeah, that was one thing that bothered me about the article. Tiger is very good, but he has off days and even off months. Everyone has slumps and Tiger is not exempt from that.
- Synova, on 01/28/2008, -0/+2For those digging down, this is probably making fun of an O'Reilly remark, not being racist.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200709210007 - inactive, on 01/28/2008, -0/+2Ummmm....Weir has 13 wins (1 major). Tiger has 62 wins (13 majors). There's no comparison here.
- zunkus, on 01/29/2008, -0/+2Having played competitive sports for most of my life ( including college and some semi-pro) I find this article to be absolute bullocks. If you know your going to be playing the best in your respective sport, not only do you prepare much more and harder...during actual competition you are much more focused. Using Tiger Woods as an example is terrible, did the author ever contemplate that he is just that much better than everyone else? (e.g. MJ)
- lovedunks, on 01/29/2008, -0/+2Most of the really good golfers probably earn more money from endorsements than actual tournament wins. Tiger's Buick contract must bank him an obscene amount of money.
- lovedunks, on 01/29/2008, -0/+1Yeah, I don't normally enjoy watching golf but there is something about him that is just fun to watch.
- lovedunks, on 01/29/2008, -1/+2Yeah, I agree. I was watching the final round when Tiger was like -20 and everyone started attempting more ballsy shots. Mickelson was in the sand just about every hole.
- SpeedyG, on 01/29/2008, -0/+1ObFlyingEagle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc9bA-hvqHU
- orca94, on 01/29/2008, -0/+1Or curling...
- yujie, on 01/29/2008, -0/+1But can he beat Deep Blue?
- mabhatter, on 01/29/2008, -0/+1The situation is that Tiger is SO much better that other "average" really good players don't have a chance to win. So when they decide to tour they are automatically deciding if second or third or fourth place is going to be cost effective. It's pushing the players that might be really good out of the running because they can never WIN. Nobody is saying Tiger SHOULDN'T be winning... but he's pretty much guaranteed to get one of the prizes just for showing up.... if you're fighting hard to get a "place" he just knocked you out for what's pocket change to him.
It's like salary caps in other pro sports... when there's 35 people per team in the game and 80% of the payout goes to 5 players per team making multi-millions the rest of the team.. the other players it takes to make a game and not a solo sport... get scraps, like less than bad computer programmers ($50k). Sure "love of the game" is nice, but when you're in the top 1000 players of the sport and can't afford to continue as a "professional" (jumping planes to far away places isn't cheap) it stops being fun and people will stop showing up for the competitions.
The article is suggesting that the distribution be paid out to more places to keep the OTHER players in the game motivated to turn out at events. Drop the big purse down and add 2-3 more spots that pay out is what he's suggesting. - MindTrigger, on 01/28/2008, -1/+2"Coffee's for closers only."
- duerra, on 01/29/2008, -0/+1It is when there's no Tiger Woods. I like watching golf when Tiger is playing. Can't stand to watch it otherwise. Golf is in its Golden Era right now - the same as the NBA was when Jordan was playing, and as Hockey was when Gretzky was playing. When you have a character that defines the face of a sport for an entire generation, those are the high points for any given sport. After Tiger retires, you'll be hard pressed to find people that are that interested in watching golf (unless, of course, somebody times along that's capable of challenging his records).
- yevkasem, on 01/28/2008, -0/+1speaking of tiger, was it just me or was sunday's final round of the buick the most boring golf anyone has ever watched? other than a few putts from tiger, no one else did anything, and even tiger quit after the front nine. it was fun watching him win the masters by 12 and u.s. open by 15 way back when, but i don't want to watch it anymore -- i want competition.
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