"If a 59-year-old guy looks like the best player in the field at a major championship, there is something wrong with your era."
Jaime Diaz files a provocative perspective on the Tom Watson run at Turnberry and comes away impressed by Watson but discouraged with the soft modern professional. This is no rant about the all-exempt tour (well there is the money angle), but mostly a statement about skill and the influence of today's equipment.
...the last round at Turnberry provided a revealing snapshot of the current era of golfers—and frankly, exposed them as wanting. For all their power and superior physiques and technical proficiency, the evidence keeps suggesting they are as a group (with one giant exception) competitively softer and less-accomplished shotmakers than their predecessors. And unless a few of them can come closer to being more like the giant exception, their place in history, much like the baby boomers, will end in the shadow of the golf equivalent of the Greatest Generation—a group including Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Johnny Miller and, of course, Watson—that ruled the game in the 1970s and into the 1980s.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 11:15 PM
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Reader Comments (28)
Let's also not forget that Cink holed out well before Watson and the pressure was arguably far less than the enormous pressure on Watson on the 72nd hole. I'm not trying to take anything away from Cink's acheivement but the pressure on Watson must've been virtually unbearable. Top-tier younger-gen players like KPerry, Monty, Retief, Ernie, Sergio, Westwood and Phil have failed to deliver under far less.
Today's modern pros play modern cavity backs and balls, which does not allow for as much shot shaping - it's not their fault they were born after Tom Watson.
Also, the PGA Tour pro prepares their game for the OTHER 29 events they play a year, tournaments that call for length and power. Forgive them for not performing the one tournament a year (or every few years for the less accomplished) where they play shorter, wind-blown, fescue ridden courses in the UK.
Put Tom Watson out on the PGA Tour every week with the younger guys, and i guarantee you he'll get his brains beat in.
Lastly, if Tom Watson is sooo far superior, where the hell has he been during the last 20 Open Championships he failed to make news/noise in?
This article is a joke!
Sir ShanksALot: Same thing damn near happened at the Open last year, too. But the protagonist then does have a reputation for, how shall we put it, fouling up in the final round of Majors.
Why can't we enjoy what happened last week for what it was? Why must we look at this as some sort of indictment on the game? This article, and other articles in the same vein (like saying that this proves golf is not a "sport") - they're all rather dull.
Take what happened last week for the incredible moment that it was. Celebrate that the game you're a fan of let's it greatest champions still have a shot well into life. Don't look at it for some sort of generational comparison because, quite frankly, it doesn't matter.
I, for one, think nothing less of the game. Quite the contrary, I think that much more of it. As cliche as it is, this game is far more mental than physical. Those of us that understand the game understand why last week happened. It's also why golf is the greatest game.
The argument is based on years of performance history, but is highlighted by this tournament.
With the exception of "He who is without a peer", today's pros, for the most part, are a bunch of limp pussies. They think "step up" means clearing the step from their garage to their house after they have parked their $80,000 dollar car in the garage of their multi-million dollar house that they got by never winning a tournament or by winning once in 10 years. If they had a rule that said win once every five years or you're out the tour would have maybe 50 guys playing.
Keep hitting those shanks!
In last complete 5 years (2004-2008), there are 195 PGA Tour tournaments (non majors, non WGC and not counting the Mercedes Championship). In that time, there were 102 different winners.
I assume you hold this same opinion of all professional athletes? At least in golf they've got to earn that second place money.
Taylor, none of us think less of the Game because the contemporary Old Tom nearly won the Open. We agree with you. But many of us are unenthusiastic at what the Panjandrums of Ponte Vedra have done to the professional game at the highest level. The current regime has taken the mental part right out of the professional game (or allowed same to occur, along with the USGA), and that is indeed why last week happened at the Open and why it captivated us.
And PCC, you are still not guilty!
I see no point in questioning character, or competitive softness. And our old friend Bob Jones was the author of the quote that went something like, "It is entirely unfair to compare golfers of different generations, who could never actually compete against one another and whose games were developed in differeing times..."
But hell yeah, it is very much a commentary on a generation's use of modern equipment. Today's players have indeed become experts at playing modern courses that are so manifestly unlike true links.
A far cry from Jaime's SI days.
Seems like Seve should have been mentioned as well.
Well, that was not at all what the original assertion was. Here's what PC said:
"With the exception of "He who is without a peer", today's pros, for the most part, are a bunch of limp pussies. They think "step up" means clearing the step from their garage to their house after they have parked their $80,000 dollar car in the garage of their multi-million dollar house that they got by never winning a tournament or by winning once in 10 years. If they had a rule that said win once every five years or you're out the tour would have maybe 50 guys playing."
That's a direct attack at the players on the PGA Tour, not the PGA Tour itself. If you want to take issue with the corporate way that the Tour has gone about making nearly every single event the same just like a hamburger at McD's tastes the same in Shanghai as it does in Indianapolis as it does in London, then we can talk about that. But PC's comments are not backed up by facts and sounds more like wealth envy that any sort of attempt at protecting the game's "honor". Now, I've lamented on my comments on here of the vanilla nature of many of the pros here:
http://www.geoffshackelford.com/homepage/2009/5/4/kenny-is-big-in-kentucky.html
But that doesn't equate them to being what PC has described them as. I'd love to see more personality out of these guys. I think Cink's done that fantastically with his activity on Twitter. More players need to become human like Cink has - show us more than the tan pants, white shirt, baseball cap robotic personality that we see. But I could care less about their ambition or money.
Are the guys today "softer"? That's kind of a lame conversation. Back when they changed the tour from 70 exempt to 125 exempt people bemoaned the same thing. I remember reading a GOLF article in the 80s that said something like "Lennie Clements, David Peoples, Ronnie Black... have never won and never finished above 70th on the money list. Get a game or get gone." Tour seems to be doing just fine despite the 2 decades of all exempt players. There have always been guys who just hang on or never seem to win (Bobby Watkins anyone?).
My biggest beef, frankly with the modern tour, is the relative sameness of the U.S. pros. Remember, professional golfers used to be thought of as lesser or workman like than other professions. Guys like Palmer and Snead came from pretty humble backgrounds Now, it seems like all the guys grew up in Las Colinas or Heathrow and are from pretty rich backgrounds. Players like Furyk stand out dramatically because they are the exeptions. I would put Tiger in that category as well.
Q.E.D.
Check it out: http://www.golfdigest.com/golfworld/winnersbag/2009/winnersbag20090719
I may have described them with excess emotion, but the description of players I give is exactly what they project and the impression that a vast majority of them create. Of course there are "good guys" who work hard, fight it out, have personality and show feeling. But the majority seemed to be well rewarded for mediocrity and I don't think mediocrity should provide one with a lush life. At least in the NFL, NBA, NHL or MLB mediocrity catches up with you fairly fast and you end up looking for another job. There are not a lot of guys on the Tour I would want next to me in a foxhole and that's my measuring stick for a pro athlete.
Wealth envy? I think not. I did very well in the late '90s and 2000s and didn't lose it last year