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If Jack was born ’90 instead of ’40


Hankshank

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Pros like Jordan Spieth who are optimizing their swing through technology and great coaching. Please. What a laugh.

I've watched Jordan swing, and it is nowhere as good as Jack's. Some are born with great talent.

Unseen, in the background, Fate was quietly slipping the lead into the boxing-glove.  P.G. Wodehouse
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Jack and his dominance, rivalry's with Palmer etc all helped popularize golf. The Palmer/Nicklaus rivalry helped push golf from the elite to a much broader audience. If that hadn't happened maybe Earl wouldn't have introduced Tiger to golf. I suspect many others wouldn't have been introduced to golf. Same could be said if Tiger had been born in 2000 instead of 1975--- Golf wouldn't be anything that it is today.

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Seems like Earl didn’t follow golf at all until pure circumstance introduced him. Crazy to think that had he not been stationed near a golf course, there probably wouldn’t be a TW. Well, there would, but he wouldn’t even play golf. What would no golf TW have done?

 

In 1972, Woods was stationed at Brooklyn's Fort Hamilton, and learned to play golf, starting at age 42,[4] at the Dyker Beach Golf Course in Dyker Heights.[9][10][11] From his first experience with golf, Woods was captivated by it, and played a great deal for the remainder of his life. He eventually became a good standard amateur golfer, often scoring in the 70s for 18 holes. Woods claimed to be playing close to scratch handicap level when his son Tiger was born in late 1975.[4] Coached by his father, Tiger Woods was introduced to golf in Orange County, California before age two,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Woods

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Would he be able to have the same commitment to golf as well as gym dedication. He competed against 5-7 guys who could win every week not 20 like now, that transcends into less than 1/2 the success. But hey, there’s plenty of sentimentals that think Jim Brown would rush for 1,000 yards a season today.

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talent will rise to the top in any age. Jacks game would have been developed differently had he been born in 75 and even more so if born in 90. Jack in his prime played a different game than Tiger in his. The same courses today play differentLy because of technology. Not club and ball technology, but course setup and maintenance tech.

From a thousand feet view, it looks like the same game, but those of us who played over the past 4 or 5 decades know that the game plays differently. The tools look the same, but’s they are surely applied differently. Guys today chip up hill with a 60* wedge and the ball will still release 25%. In the 70’s they were bump and running a 5, 7, or 8 iron.

It would be truly interesting to see a few tourneys set up to those “old school” fairways, rough and greens. Of course the talented players will find a way to go low, but watching them get creative would be truly exciting to see.

Talent would win the day as it has in each generation.

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I confess that I misunderstood the hypothetical. I thought it was Nicklaus being the same, but younger. If we are talking about him being born in 1990 and having modern influences, I definitely think he would have developed into a better player than he did back then. Basic physical fitness would be drastically different.

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>No that's not all. It was the plane and the sponsors and the clubs and the launch monitors. All the players you claim would make Jack an also ran have the same advantages - Tiger start out "unfunded"? No plane? LOL. There should be no Tiger according to you - everybody optimizing those swings.

Wow, I don't remember you being this slow before.

The WHOLE POINT is that modern players have the same advantages --- which means Jack no longer has the advantage over them.

That aside, I never said Jack would be an also-ran --- I said it stands to reason he would not have won as many events. Whether he would win more than anyone else, including Tiger, nobody can say. I've never said that Tiger, or anyone else could beat Jack head to head under fair conditions. It's impossible to know. What I have said is that Jack had weaker fields to beat than Tiger, because all of the world's best golfers never showed up at the same major until about 1980. Before then, a lot of US players good enough to win didn't play the Open, and a lot of foreign players good enough to win didn't play the other three.

I've never said Jack wasn't a singular talent. Nobody with any sense would. But modern technology reduces the edge that talent gives you. You don't have to hit a driver dead center anymore. You don't have to be able to loft a 1-iron any more. A mishit ball doesn't hook or slice as much as it used to.

This isn't speculation, because we saw it with Tiger. Tiger outdrove everybody by 40 yards when they were all playing steel shafts. Once driver tech improved, Tiger (and I'm talking about Tiger in his 20's, not today) was still one of the longest, but he wasn't a Walmart ahead of them any more.

It's just a fact that Jack had a lot of advantages over his competition that either he wouldn't have today (playing all the majors, practicing at major venues weeks in advance, fields not as deep, private plane, no money worries, etc.), or that would be mitigated by modern club, ball, and training technology (his unworldly talent). I have no idea how many strokes those advantages translated to, but it seems reasonable to me that he would win less often.

It also seems reasonable to me that with Jack in the field, Tiger would win less often. So I have no idea who would come out on top.

 

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Jordan and Jack are completely different body types, so obviously the swing that is optimal for Jack will be different than the swing that is optimal for Jordan. I can't believe I have to explain this in a golf forum.

And a player finding his optimal swing doesn't mean he will win every event, it means he will play better than he would with a less optimal swing. So obviously a player with more talent will beat a player with less talent, even if they both have optimal swings, and if the disparity in talent is enough, even if the more talented player has a less optimal swing.

But it stands to reason that if you are mostly playing against the 100 best players in the US, and only half of them have found their best swing, you're gong to win more events than if you are mostly playing against the 100 best players in the whole world, and 90% of them have found their best swing.

As I tried unsuccessfully to explain to the other guy, that doesn't mean Jack would be an also-ran. Maybe the increased competition would make him practice harder, concentrate on golf rather than his equipment business or course design or whatever, and he'd win 100 events and 20 majors. I doubt it, but nobody can know, and I have no problem with people who disagree with my opinion, as long as they show that at least they understand what I'm saying.

 

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Optimal, schmoptimal. Start putting Seve and Tom and Arnie and Trevino on launch monitors and coaching them up you could just as easily have ruined their swings and careers. You really think just because Jack had some tuneups with Grout he didn't already own his swing and have a pretty good idea what he was doing? And guys who may have used anyone else or nobody were just wandering in the desert? Yep, he made some changes over time, so did lots of folks with coaches or without. Today's analysis ad nauseam isn't the be all you are making it out to be.

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Do you think it would have taken Hogan ten years to cure his hook if he had had modern technology? Forget Jack and Tiger, if Hogan hadn't wasted ten years on trial and error, not to mention the war and the bus, he could well have had 100 wins and 25 majors.

And it's stupid to say tech could just as well ruin your swing. Why do you think everybody uses it if it's no better than a coin flip? Why do you think some swing coaches charge 20 bucks an hour and others charge a thousand bucks an hour if nothing matters but talent?

No, it's not magic. No, it won't make everybody shoot 54 every round. But it will make you better. And with the razor thin margins between players today, getting better is a good thing.

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Plenty of players past and present have gone down swing change rabbit holes - the modern ones do it with . . . . . coaches and tech. You can't magically assume Hogan wasted his time, maybe not. Maybe there were other benefits, maybe that was the best way for him. And there is talent and then there is . . . . . . TALENT.

It's a fantasy discussion, no reason to pound the table over what is in the end wild speculation all around, lol.

 

 

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And so then those “5-7” guys learned how to close out a tournament, even when going up against the best player of the time. How many of those fabulous “20 of those guys now” will (or ever have) gone toe to toe with Tiger down the stretch and bested him?

Id take my chances everyday against 20 guys with a history of being more prone to a 4th round collapse than 5-7 who can close. ‘77 Turnberry, Tiger ever have that type final round? And that’s not a diss on Tiger by any means, I think he’s played the best golf ever while Jack is the best champion, just my opinion of that stale old argument about who each guy had to beat.

But, back to the question. Can you imagine the epic years of tournaments we’d have seen if Tiger and Jack both been at their peaks at the same time?

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