NFL QB vs PGA Tour Pro: which is harder?

[Fjc27]

Such an interesting question. I don’t think there is a definitive right answer and we are biased as golfers... but I think the fact that you cant rely on anyone else in golf tips my opinion that way. But awesome debate fodder.

[VNutz]

There generally aren't even enough competent QBs to go around the NFL, as a Bears fan I know this all too well. There are a LOT of talented tour pros out there, to the point that tournament alternates occasionally win. Apples to oranges and all situations are different, but I think there are more talented golfers out there than quarterbacks.

[shoot4par]

I don't think you understand the definition of the word cerebral.

Synonyms - cerebral, intellectual(adj) involving intelligence rather than emotions or instinct

ie. making a read, audibles, checking protection with the center.

[Man_O_War]

"Last I checked, Brady is a high single digit handicap. Romo has been playing golf his entire life, so its not really a fair comparison. Quarterback is the most cerebral position in team sports, there is definitely a mental capacity to it. Success is the result of a team. In golf, a players' success is the result of the individual exclusively. A great wideout, line can make a qb look phenomenal. The right game plan can make success more attainable regardless of skill. As a golfer, the only way you look great is precise execution. Two different sports and it's a really difficult comparison to make."

 

I am not sure you understand the word "cerebral" in all its context but thanks for sharing. I was responding to the above. I obviously disagree that it is the most "cerebral position" in team sports.

[Cwing]

Well, there are far more PGA players than there are NFL quarterbacks.

[Brock Savage]

I don't see how this is even a question. You can look at it in a variety of different ways, and they all favor the QB.

Simplest is pure numbers. There are maybe 100 NFL QBs, counting all the backups. There are maybe a thousand touring pros, counting all the pros who qualify for a PGA event each year. Heck, Retief Goosen, ranked #1685 in the world, is in the field at the Players this week. Even if you only count players with a PGA Tour card, it's around 200.

Another way to look at it is how hard is it to become a golfer/QB starting from scratch? Much easier for the golfer. Let's say Arnie is a junior high golfer, and Joe is a junior high QB. We assume both are in the top fraction of a percent for talent in their sport. Arnie should sail through high school and college golf teams, and has all kinds of ways to get into the field of a PGA event --- Monday qualifying, Open qualifying, sponsor's exemptions, etc. Also, he can play like crap for his entire youth, find something in his 20's or even 30's, and still get into a tour event in any of those ways, and get his card from there. Theoretically, a guy who never touched a club until he was 40 could get a card.

The QB has a much tougher road. If he isn't the best QB at every level, or if his coach's son is a QB, he is liable to be asked, or forced, to switch to some other position. If he isn't a star in high school, he won't get a scholarship. If he isn't a star in college, he won't get drafted. If he doesn't get drafted, he's got a chance in a million of even getting an NFL tryout, let alone making a team, and even that is only if he showed a hella lot of potential in college. Yes, Kurt Warner was famously bagging groceries before winning the Super Bowl, but he was the Offensive POTY in his college conference, and a star in Arena football and NFL Europe after that, before getting picked up by an NFL team. There is NOBODY who became an NFL QB without being a star at a lower level.

Add to all that the very real chance of suffering a career-ending injury every time a QB steps on the field, at every level. The very real chance of getting no recognition, hence no scholarships or tryouts, because your O-line or receivers suck. You can do everything right, and just have the bad luck that by the time the QBs ahead of you have been drafted, there isn't a team who needs a QB that year.

Bottom line, about the only way a golfer with anything even approaching Tiger-like talent and motivation could miss getting a PGA card is severe illness or injury. Luck would have almost nothing to do with it. If Tiger hadn't touched a club until he was 25, he could still have gone through local and sectional qualifying for the US Open, done well, and eventually he would have started winning and had his card.

There are a dozen ways a QB with Brady-like talent and motivation could fail to make an NFL team, and luck would have a lot to do with it. The chance of injury would be a thousand times higher. Bad luck with his coaches or receivers or O-line, or even just having a better QB ahead of him on the depth chart, could easily keep him from being a star in college, and so could have kept him from getting drafted. Brady just barely got drafted, even after starring in a big-time program at Michigan, even after beating Alabama in the Orange Bowl. Steve Mariucci, among other coaches, say they looked at him carefully, and didn't see much NFL potential.

There's no Monday qualifying in the NFL. And yeah, I saw "Invincible," where a guy made the Eagles at an open tryout. That was fiction. In real life, he got a private tryout based on his play in the WFL.

 

 

[bscinstnct]

Good stuff, BS. Yes, I agree on many levels. If we are saying to be a starting pro QB vs being #125 on the PGA Tour.

 

But, elite level? Tiger Woods is just as freakin “good” as Brady or Montana or whomever you want to throw in.

 

However you want to define “good”.

 

And this is where I disagree that the two can even be compared.

 

Can you compare Mickey Mantle to Ali?

 

Can you compare Lawrence Taylor to Michael Jordan?

 

Is it “harder” for Brady to win 6 rings than for TW to win 15 Majors?

 

 

[shoot4par]

Not to get into a p*****g contest here... For the sake of argument pitcher, catcher. If you use cerebral as a synonym for intellectual. Goalie is strictly reactionary in game, (pre game scouting, tape) unless you're a complete headcase.

[Man_O_War]

headcase should be reserved for you.

[shoot4par]

Nope, but solid troll effort. You don't happen to be a lawyer? I hear there are a lot of starving ones out there.

[Brock Savage]

Tiger vs Brady is a different question. I agree, you can't compare them. I don't even think you can compare Tiger and Jack the way most people try to do, with raw numbers. Tiger and Jones, or Tiger and Vardon, forget about it, completely different games.

So, if the question is whether it's harder to do what Tiger has done versus what Brady has done, there's just no way to answer it. You might as well throw in Einstein, or Mozart. Completely different genres.

But the question was, harder to be an NFL QB or a PGA pro, not Tiger or Brady. And I maintain that when you're talking about the average touring pro, versus the average NFL QB, the NFL QB slot is MUCH harder to attain.

[shoot4par]

I would agree. I think just from a figures perspective, its impossible to compare. You'd have to separate golfers from people with legitimate aspirations under a certain age. Football is much more popular in America. It's trying to compare apples to oranges.

[OrangeGravy]

Anyone, including small children, can make that putt purely by accident. You can't accidentally throw a football 50 yards to a moving target. Many bad golfers can execute parts of the game at a fairly high level because other than extreme distance, there isn't nearly the same physical barrier to entry as other sports. Putting all of those different parts together at a tour player level is extremely difficult, so I don't know what is "harder". I do think that the starting point for who can potentially make it to the 2 designated positions (if you had a way to evaluate every young child on the planet) in this debate are way different. The pool of humans that even have a chance to get to the NFL starting QB level, I think, is way smaller than the pool of humans that could get to the level of the tour if you boil it down to a physical genetics and you're talking about having the same level of time and resources to devote your youth to achieving that goal.

[cdnglf]

Yeah, but how many things have to go right get this job

[bscinstnct]

No, and do you know why?

 

Because if the same exact size talent pool played golf as football, the bar would be equally as high.

 

You view golf as being lots of non “athletes”. But what if golf was played by tons of guys as good as Tiger? Like the same pool as play MLB and NBA and Soccer?

 

The process for excellence tee to green, around the green, and on the green can be equally as “hard” as reading a D, evading a rush, and making a throw.

 

And my perspective is not biased toward golf. I played uncle Rico football for all those years, and was not the worst, way before I played golf.

 

Golf is very hard. It’s not really a natural athletic endeavor on many levels.

 

 

[OrangeGravy]

But as it stands, it isn't and it may never be.

[shoot4par]

I agree completely with everything you said. I would also add to look at guys like Rory, DJ, Brooks or Tiger and not see some biological athleticism would be doing an injustice to them. Rory's hip movement and swing is as phenomenal to me as Brady's motion.

[OrangeGravy]

Also to your point about golf being hard and requiring a different skill set, it's impossible to know what the "crossover" rate would look like if really good traditionally athletic kids started playing at a young age. It would definitely change things even more from a power perspective though, because enough of them would be able to develop the precision to go along with the raw athletic ability.

Basketball/football players are extremely athletic, but watching them throw out the first pitch or try to hit a ball can be comical. Baseball shares with golf some of the more precision skill set stuff.

[Forged4ever]

I agree ? with everything Pete states in his post.

 

To compare the two as athletes is a fool’s errand~

 

The more athletic?

 

QB’s

 

THE Best athletes?

 

Again, and it’s been stated above me that in many cases you’re comparing ?’s to ?’s, though I’d go with an NBA Player.

 

Regarding which is more difficult at the highest level??

 

Striking a golf ball under the gun on the PGA Tour!!!

 

Tony Romo???

 

GTFOH??

 

Seriously???

 

GTFOH??

 

The guys who’ve either Played with or against Elite Ams(I’m talkin USGA caliber Players or Champions, not some “+1” that most of ya might play sh*ts’n giggles $5 nassaus with?) or any Professional level Player trying to get to the Tour, know of what I am speaking because in competition, top flight Amateur or Professional competition, under the gun, luck has as much to do with succeeding on Tour or getting to the Tour, as pure skill and performance, which is not the case with Playing QB at the highest level.

 

One thing that I believe and this is based on Playing football(?) for 17 years and then Playing golf for 42+ years, and while I was not what I classify as an “Elite” Player, I did have the good fortune, and sometimes not so good, lolol, of competing against “Elite” Players, both Amateur and Professional, and I believe that there are three areas that determine one’s level of achievement in ANY sport, profession and even social scenarios....

 

1) Skill level

2) Performance “under the gun”

3) Luck

 

That third factor is much much more prevalent in a Tour Player’s career than it is in a NFL QB’s.

 

Yea, yea, I know that luck came into Play on a Play like Eli’s incredible TD throw where he, never known for breaking away from would be tacklers and extending the pocket, ??, broke away from myriad defenders and a sure sack to throw the “helmet catch” to David Tyree, however most of a QB’s success at this level is based on skill and performing under the gun.

 

Not so with a golf club in one’s hand.

 

One Player hits the pin with a shot and the ball drops dead, 8-10” from the pin, for a tap-in birdie/eagle while another Player hits basically the same shot with their ball also hitting the pin however their ball ricochets off of it and across the green into a bunker, or conversely, like Euro Pro JB Hansen’s bunker “hosel rocket,” that drove into the grass above the bunker, bounced up and rolled up to the pin, allowing him to get his up/down and save his par(see video below).

 

My Tour Bud, who won his only Tour Victory by defeating a Major Champion, 4-Time RC Selection and a future RC Captain in a play-off, however during his Saturday round, he hit a 194yd 5i into the green and he pulled it left and his ball hit the front-left green side bunker rake and instead of ricocheting/driving further left into the rough, which would be the normal direction based off of the spin of the shot had it missed the 1 1/2” around rake handle, it deflected right, bouncing off of the top half a foot to a foot from the left green side rough, onto the green and rolled to within a foot of the pin, for a tap-in birdie. From a difficult par, potential bogie to a tap-in birdie, all on the bounce and spin of the ball, and he needed to save every single stroke that he could over those 72 holes, lol.

 

I was told by my college position coach(LB) that luck was nothing more than the intersection point of preparation and performance, and I most definitely believe that to be true as the mediocre and poorly prepared or mediocre/poor performers rarely if ever get “lucky.”

 

Soooo, it is my belief that it is more difficult to one, have that PGA Tour Card in your wallet, and secondly, to win on the PGA Tour, than it is to quarterback an NFL team and to win as a QB at the NFL level.

 

As always, just my .03 worth?

 

Stay Well My Friends & have a great season??‍♂️??‍♀️⛳️

RP

 

On another topic: If there are any mods that know why my Scott Mcarron thread got locked down as I saw no rude/inappropriate posts and can’t locate a mod, I’d love to know what was wrong, so that it is not repeated. It’s no biggie, though I’m just curious, and also, it’s a lil hit on my ego, as I’ve started quite a few threads over the years and NEVER had one ?’d ???

 

Thanks Gents,

RP

[Rory Mcilwoods]

NFL QB easily. There are only 4-5 quality QBs in any year.

[dalehead]

There are only 32 guys in the world who are good enough to be NFL starting quarterbacks. And the fans of some teams would tell you their guy shouldn’t be one of them.

[bscinstnct]

 

Yes, well, there are only 32 teams ; )

 

Lets say there were only 32 spots open on the PGA Tour. Would it be “harder” to be a QB than a pro.

 

It’s really the only top 20 or even Top 10 golfers that are playing with all cyclinders firing in their game at very high level.

 

As the op is written, it’s harder to be a qb. But, if we are looking at “elite” level. Is it “harder” to play the caliber of golf TW did vs. Brady in football? Or even say what Rory or BK did when they are “on”.

 

I don’t like the comparison overall. I think golf pro vs mlb pitcher would be better, what are there like 150 mlb starting pitchers or so?

 

 

 

 

[dalehead]

Of course there are only 32 NFL teams. That was the comparison that was set up. NFL QB vs PGA tour pro. Comparing to the top 10 or 20 tour pros is a different matter. And an NFL QB has to perform at his best every game. If a tour pro wins 2 or 3 times a year he’s considered great.

Lets be real. The comparison is pretty silly. The sports are too different. All we can say is an NFL QB and a PGA tour pro have both reached the pinnacle of their respective sports.

[Forged4ever]

“IF A TOUR PRO WINS 2-3 TIMES A YEAR HE’S CONSIDERED GREAT” ????

 

EASILY one the THREE greatest statements that I’ve EVER seen posted on this board??

 

I’m just messing around Dale??

 

Fairways & Greens 4ever My Friend⛳️

RP

[caniac6]

Didn't ex-QB John Brodie win on the Senior Tour? Don't think any Tour Pros have played in a NFL game.

[bscinstnct]

 

Agree. But I still like my golf vs mlb pitcher comparison.

 

There some similarities. Like...

 

Both are pretty “stationary”. Pitchers do a little fielding but generally, they stand, look at the best pitch for the situation, then throw. It’s not a “reaction”. Kind of like golf.

 

Also, a pitcher throws for power but also uses finesse and touch to throw balls with spin and placement. Like golfers with Irons/wedges.

 

And the total pitches/strokes are even similar. How many pitches for a starter these days? Maybe 90 or so? And each throw is thought out and planned for each situation. Kind of like golf.

 

Sort of similar kinetic chain move as well.

[Forged4ever]

Great Stuff and more appropriate analogy though as I never Played baseball⚾️, I’d leave that debate to you and others that did, or at least those that competed at a high level either as an Am or Pro and against them.

I especially like the numbers aspect of the Pro Pitcher/Tour Player comparison, give or take a few??
@Socrates may have the name, and granted, he does provide some superbly insightful thoughts and posts?, however, year in and year out, season after season, you constantly and without fail rise above the numbnvts, jerk-0ffs & riff raff like myself, and much like a Player focuses out the “noise,” both internally and externally, you too keep stay focused on the subject while derailments occur around you, more than a few caused by myself??

Very Nicely Played?

Stay Well Brother?
RP

[Rory Mcilwoods]

Yeah, nah. Those Aussie football players only used an existing skill in the NFL and are limited to punting. If an AFL players became a high quality QB, then that would be different.

 

[straightshot7]

"LeBron couldn't play wide receiver or tight end".

[llewol007]

Coming up with a quick answer I say pro golfers. Hard to compare though because both require to be at the top of their game under constant pressure. Both have to be fluid in their motion. They both have to be close to perfection each time they hit or throw the ball. They have to have a steady mindset and keep from distractions. The differing things between the two is that the NFL QB has to manage not just his game but position his other players on the field to be where they are at. The Golf Pro has to put an action on a stationary object so for me, a lot more can go wrong from swing to swing and the small difference can lead to a bad outcome. An Nfl Qb can throw a duck and still be catchable by the receiver. So to me it is a toss up.