Favorite Tour Picture

[emncaity]

This one too. The golf he played to win Turnberry in '86 was as good as it can by played.

 

 

What a year that could have been!!! the saturday slam.Insanely high level of golf just couldnt close on the other 3.

 

Right?!? People remember him for that collapse at Augusta in '96, but they forget how good he was at the height of his powers. For a decade his A game was close to untouchable.

 

Norman was an even greater sportsman by the way he dealt with the aftermath of his 1996 Masters collapse.

 

I've always thought that shirt was uglier than the choke.

 

Wasn't a choke. Not really. More like hubris, or a kind of useful arrogance that served him well at times but rose to the level of disastrous hubris at other times. I keep going back to things he used to say like how he could tell the difference between 161 and 162 just by the feel of the ball off the clubface, which may be a useful attitude to have but is easily disprovable as fact by objective testing. As an analogue of a more general phenomenon observed by social psychologists -- that an overly positive impression of one's own skills, appearance, intelligence, etc., can be positive and adaptive in many situations -- it's not hard to see how this can be good up to a point but can destroy you in specific situations like the final round of a major.

 

Take his approach to #9, for instance, where (apparently) a sincere belief that he could fit the wedge into a space of literally a couple of yards left him almost no margin for error, he was a shade short, and it caused a bogey. He still had a three-shot lead at the time, too, and Faldo was 30 feet or so above the hole with a fairly tough two-putt. If you look at similar situations with Nicklaus, he retained the perspective necessary to keep giving himself a realistic margin of error. Given the same situation on #9, it's likely that Nicklaus, especially in a situation where a lead was slipping away and he wasn't ultraprecise with distances at the moment, would've been aiming at a distance 20 feet or so past the hole, so even if he was off by as much as five or six yards -- hitting it a little fat, off the toe, whatever -- he's still not 30 yards back down the fairway with a tough pitch and a likely bogey. Watch Norman in that final round of the '96 Masters, and you see over and over again a failure to recognize that he wasn't as sharp as he was on the first three days, and a failure to adjust accordingly. I just don't think that's "choking" in the sense of being too nervous for the moment. More like a kind of bullheadedness you see in some supremely talented and confident people. It's not the only time he did it, just the most obvious. (On the other hand, I guess you could make a case for extending the definition of "choking" to anything that makes a player lose his better judgment or do things differently in a final round or any other high-pressure situation, even if it's not out of nerves or feelings of inadequacy or whatever.)

 

Also, the media played up the six-shot lead way too much in the first place. Faldo wasn't too far removed from a long run at #1, and six shots is only one shot every three holes. It was never as unlikely as the media made it out to be.

 

For the record, I always thought Norman was never given credit by most people for just how great a player he was at his best. For much of his run at #1, he played the game at about as high a level as anybody ever has. See the final round of the '93 British Open.

[emncaity]

 

 

Such a throwback kinda guy. Just love him.

[emncaity]

Fun thread. Here are a few of mine that come to mind

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Re the last one: Hope it was worth it. It actually might've been.

[Undonersg]

 

beautiful picture.

[emncaity]

Jack Nicklaus at 14 years of age.

 

Who knew he would end up being the greatest of all time back then?!

 

 

Some people will be tempted to say "Jack did," but that wouldn't be right. He wanted to be as good a player as he could be, but at this time and for a long time afterward that's really all he was thinking. Well into his college career, he was still thinking about being a great amateur, winning club championships and contending in state opens, playing in the U.S. Open when he could, etc. It's actually kind of instructive to see how he just thought about improving and competing, and he let the quality of his game take him where it took him eventually.

[emncaity]

Cars are better now in every quantifiable way--faster, safer, more efficient, on and on. And yet they just plain old suuuuuuuck.

 

I just want to be able to turn my headlights off!

 

Your car disagrees that you need to do that. So.

[emncaity]

 

This is my favorite, also. Actually Moe is demonstrating Position 4 1/2 from Paul Bertholy;

 

Gonna hit you smack in yer face, ya scurvy wee bastairt.

 

(Yes, I know he was Canadian, not Scottish. Don't ask.)

[emncaity]

Kind of unwieldy to do it this way, but Christosterone posted a reply (to a previous post of mine) that I thought was worth responding to, then the reply disappeared. Can't tell if he's now off these boards or not. Can't find a live link to his stuff. Not sure what happened.

 

Anyway, this is what I said (originally it had to do with a photo of Mediate and/or Woods, I think):

 

>>> And then Rocco smiled his way into an "I'm just happy to be here" loss, capped off by using the same club for his tee shot on the sudden-death hole with which he'd missed the fairway over and over on that same hole (I think it was a 4- or 5-wood), putting it in the fairway bunker and drawing not such a great lie, hitting it well short from there, pitching on to 18 feet or so, missing the putt, making a total mess of a hole that just wasn't that long or hard, and handing Woods the victory on a bogey to Woods' routine two-putt par -- after opening the door for him on Sunday by refusing to take the opening on the 72nd hole from a playable lie in the left rough to hit it to the right side of the green (or even right fringe, bunker whatever) and leave only an up-and-down for a birdie rather than a full wedge.

 

I've got nothing against Mediate. I'm inclined to like him, actually. But he started early to play not to lose. The happy-happy thing became just-happy-to-be-here. He played OK in the 18-hole playoff, looking like somebody who just wanted to act like it was a casual round, but when it came to the crucial moment, there was a way to refuse to lose by making the same mistakes he'd made on that hole before. Just anything but the same thing. You can't see Nicklaus or Woods doing that.

 

Anybody who's interested ought to look up how many tournaments Woods won when somebody shot a crap final round or bogeyed a playoff hole. I mean, he can't help it if people are going to throw up all over their own shoes. He can only beat who's in front of him. But boy, did it ever get tiresome watching all the "these guys are good" and "greatest generation" promos from the Tour, then watching that happen over and over. <<<

 

 

To which he replied as follows:

 

>> Not to poke holes in your post but have u watched Trevino and Jacks 1971 US Open playoff?

Jack left it in 2 or 3 bunkers on just the front nine....

 

After the rain break, Jack wasn’t again within 2 of Lee...

 

Granted Trevino was an assassin and told Jack the rain would make him[Lee] win since it softened the greens...

 

Jack was the greatest and sometimes u have an off day or a bad hole...

 

Mediate gave tiger a run but that putt tiger made on the 72nd hole was astonishing...

 

Then he did what he had to do in the playoff...

 

<<

 

 

 

My response:

 

Some valid points here, but I don't think they negate what I was saying. The broad point that Nicklaus wasn't always brilliant in final rounds and that there were times when other top players handed him a win is true. Partly what I'm saying is a matter of degree, when it comes to Woods. There is hardly anything you can point to, other than the famous occasions with Clarke and Sutton (and Yang), when anybody hit him in the mouth after he had hit them. Apart from those rare instances, Woods won playoffs over and over with pars or easy birdies on reachable par-5s when a competitor was throwing up all over his own shoes. Same for final rounds of majors and other tournaments. You can look up the record, and it's just glaring. The oft-cited fact that Woods almost never lost final-round leads would be spectacular if it were a result of his great play in those situations, but it's just not. Over and over it's a result of competitors finding ways to be mediocre when it counted. If people were looking at that stat in the right way, it'd put the lie to the "greatest generation" tripe. In a "greatest generation," you're not going to stroll away with win after win while not being challenged down the stretch.

 

But having said so, it's also true -- and I've said this many times -- that it's not Woods' fault that other people tended to faint dead away when he was in the lead. He could only beat who was in front of him, and he did over and over again. My problem is more with the "greatest generation" players who did the fainting, and also with the PGA Tour that nevertheless pursues its endless marketing campaign as if anybody before 1996 was by definition quaint and inferior.

 

Again, I'm not trying to be too hard on Rocco here. He's a good guy. It was just sickening to me to see him underplay the whole thing to the point of ridiculousness, as if a U.S. Open wouldn't have changed his status as a player forever. It's not that Woods didn't make a good birdie on the final hole of regulation. Of course he did. It's just Mediate's refusal to hit a decisive shot on the 72nd (from the left rough) and his failure to figure out a way to play a usable tee shot on the 7th that bug me. Top competitors don't do things like that very often when they're right there with a chance to win a major. You can point to the occasional collapse of a great player -- Snead's 8 to lose an Open comes to mind immediately, among others -- but not as a habit. And we're talking about a good but-second-rank kind of player who had a legitimate chance to win a major and change his legacy. It just never looked like it meant anything.

 

I don't mean that people have to act hostile or all jacked-up competitive on the course. I can't stand that, actually. But it was just so clear that he never saw himself as the guy to take down Woods in an Open. Can you imagine Hogan acting happy-grab-a** like that when he was playing Snead, or the other way around? Or Nelson while playing either of them? Or Nicklaus and Palmer in a Masters duel like that, or Nicklaus and Watson at Turnberry? Where were the great duels between Woods and anybody else from the "greatest generation" that could match that day at Turnberry, or Nicklaus at the Masters in '75, or some of the battles between Snead and Hogan?

 

Still, if you're ever reading this, Christosterone, be assured you're more than welcome to "poke holes" in anything I post. As Edward R. Murrow used to say: "Dear Sir or Madam, you may be right." ;-)

[norge5]

Not trying to get off the OP's topic but no matter how you slice it, Greg Norman choked. And he didn't choke a little bit, he choked big time.

[dlygrisse]

Not trying to get off the OP's topic but no matter how you slice it, Greg Norman choked. And he didn't choke a little bit, he choked big time.

 

Multiple times. On the biggest stage. In spectacular fashion.

[justasgood]

Favorite Tour Pics or favorite tour arguments?

[iBanesto]

[bscinstnct]

 

Winners of the

 

How not to dress awards.

[Christosterone]

 

Winners of the

 

How not to dress awards.

 

Umm, the 90s fashion were da bomb...I was stoked 24/7 about the rad threads

 

-Chris

[Boney]

1996. Sweet driver!

 

[imakaveli]

Not trying to get off the OP's topic but no matter how you slice it, Greg Norman choked. And he didn't choke a little bit, he choked big time.

 

Multiple times. On the biggest stage. In spectacular fashion.

 

He did choke, but he also got unlucky and that's unfortunate since we all lose in not seeing Shark playing Augusta every year. Some people choked and still won, sometimes you just have to get lucky.

[norge5]

I don't see anything wrong with those clothes. Better than guys wearing smedium shirts and painted on pants.

[Steele47]

I don't see anything wrong with those clothes. Better than guys wearing smedium shirts and painted on pants.

 

 

"Smedium" lol.

[Darth Putter]

 

Winners of the

 

How not to dress awards.

 

The Golf How Not to Dress Awards were discontinued after the 1970s.

 

In the interest of decorum, I will not be posting images of those atrocities.

[Christosterone]

The coolest era ever was the late 60s to late 70s...

 

Doug Sanders was designing his own shirts and cardigans...

 

He still dresses like a boss on and off the course!

 

The cardigan era was by far the best imho

 

-Chris

[augustgolf]

^^^^What is that think that looks like it's hanging on a huge barbeque spit?^^^^^

[Christosterone]

^^^^What is that think that looks like it's hanging on a huge barbeque spit?^^^^^

 

Fish from lake while in South Africa on preserve...

 

-Chris

[Kenny Lee Puckett]

 

it wasn't too long ago "classic" attire was still the look. and it wasn't Woods and the Nike golf team who changed the look btw (thank you very little Cobra/Puma golf). so, maybe someday they will go back to dressing like men. not like they're auditioning for a boy band.

[GolfChannel]

Is the classic look actually gone? I mean JT does a pretty good job of keeping it classy but functional.

[Kenny Lee Puckett]

Is the classic look actually gone? I mean JT does a pretty good job of keeping it classy but functional.

I'd agree with you, I think he does. and I also think we should drop the subject or this might get overly debated, eventually spiral out of control, and get this wonderful thread locked. edit: my apologies to the thread OP.

 

so, let's get back to the pictures....

 

less than 100 days till the Masters Tournament.

[iBanesto]

Steve Elkington - Nevertheless one of the best looking swings of all time.

 

[norge5]

 

it wasn't too long ago "classic" attire was still the look. and it wasn't Woods and the Nike golf team who changed the look btw (thank you very little Cobra/Puma golf). so, maybe someday they will go back to dressing like men. not like they're auditioning for a boy band.

I couldn't agree more.

[iBanesto]

A bit of Davis Love III.

 

 

 

[imakaveli]

Nicklaus, 1961 US Amateur

 

[imakaveli]