Tales From The Bunker

There will always be a debate on who is the greatest golfer ever. But how do we define who is the greatest ever. Below is a list of possible criteria to evaluate PGA professionals to determine who the greatest golfer of all time is.

Most Major Wins – The most commonly used criteria is the number of major wins. Using this Jack Nicklaus is the greatest golfer of all-time, for now. No one knows what the future holds for Tiger Woods who is only 4 wins behind. But what if we add the element of length of career to the equation. Jack won his 18 majors in 25 years. Tiger has won his 14 in 16 years and counting. What about Bobby Jones who played part time for 8 years and won 7 majors before retiring.  The argument goes on and on…

Most Tournaments Won – Certainly an argument can be made that the player who won the most tournaments should be considered the greatest. Sam Snead leads the list with 82 wins (Including 7 majors).  One element of greatness is longevity and this is the best measure of quality of career or is it?

Best Scoring Average – Using this would take the entire human element out of the decision of who is the greatest. But it does not include the variables of improvement in equipment, quality of tournaments played or depth of players in the era. There is the long standing argument that Tiger has not had the quality of competition that Jack did (Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Lee Trevino, Johnny Miller, Tom Watson etc. all played against Jack).  The Vardon Trophy is given to the best golfer each year based on scores. Tiger has won it eight times.  Next is Billy Casper with five wins.  Billy Casper does not even belong in this conversation.

Most Prize Money – Golfers between periods cannot be compared, and recently earnings have skyrocketed. Earning are not a valid criteria.

We would love to hear from our readers on what they think is the most valid criteria to use to name the greatest player ever.

As always, keep ‘em in the fairway.

Tags: Blogging by admin
7 Comments »

Although he is returning to action this week his star has fallen enormously since the sex scandal broke. He has lost endorsement deals with Accenture, AT & T, Gillette, Gatorade and the ultimate humiliation Gold Digest.  There is plenty of room on this bag for corporate logos.

Tiger’s agent recently announced a new endorsement deal with a Japanese company (terms undisclosed) to do commercials for Valentin Kowa, a heat rub for muscle pain. A heat rub! I guess BENGAY was not available.

Back in the day when he was on top, endorsement talks started at $5 million a year for 5 years. No doubt this deal fell far short of that price but he probably has all the heat rub he needs for his bad left knee.

The real question is if he wins the PGA or another major soon, will the corporations return quickly and lavish him with money or is his brand so tainted that those days are over.  Only time will tell but my guess is if he returns to form all will be forgiven and the endorsements will flow again. We all love winners no matter how flawed they are.

Feel free to voice your own opinion. We would love to hear from you.

As always, keep ‘em in the fairway.

Tags: Blogging by admin
1 Comment »

One more Masters is in the books and Charl Schwartzel is the big winner. (Whoever he is) And one more major goes by without a Tiger victory.  Are his days of dominance over or is he still working on his new swing? Only time will tell.

Jack Nicklaus had one swing coach for 39 years, Jack Grout. Grout believed in self-sufficiency, that a golfer had to be charge of his own swing. Only by being self reliant could a golfer achieve his full potential.

Tiger is on his third swing coach. His first, Butch Harmon, believed in using a players existing swing and correcting any problems, a Grout like approach.  His second, Hank Haney, teaches a specific swing system that took Tiger 18 months to fully adopt.

Hank claims he quite on his own last May. He talked about the constant pressure from Woods to watch every single shot in every single tournament so he would be ready to answer any question Tiger may have on any particular shot. After each major he would lay awake at night trying to figure out how to make Tiger a better golfer. That type of pressure can last only so long so he took Tiger’s personal problems as an opportunity to quite.

Tiger’s newest coach, Sean Foley, also teaches a specific system.  But his system is completely different and Sean has not made a secret of his disdain for Hank Haney.

Some quotes from Sean on Tiger’s Haney swing include “There is nothing about what he was doing in his previous swing that made any sense to me” and “Let’s be honest about this. It’s not like he was flushing it with Hank.”

Let look at Tiger’s performance under the two coaches. Under Haney he won 6 majors and finished in the top ten in 85% of the tournaments he entered. Under Sean he has zero major wins and zero wins period. While his swing is still a work in progress, until Tiger achieves some success, Sean ….just shut up!

As always, keep’em in the fairway.

Tags: Blogging by admin
No Comments »

We thought we would leave you with a little homework for the weekend. Just practice imitating the swing below and by Monday you should be a much better golfer. It is as simple as that.

Tags: Tips by admin
No Comments »