re: Golf needs another dominant figure

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All i am saying is big hitters using the higher lofts out of the US open rough is a massive advantage. Those are the guys who have had success since webb won the meat grinder at Oylmpic. It is really the only major i see him competing for

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I get it, but he's not going to compete well there either if he doesn't improve his game from 100 yards and in. Those other big hitters who are doing well there also have good short games and have made conscious efforts to work on them. I honestly think Bryson's win in the US Open was somewhat of a fluke TBH. In that tournament he was 3rd in strokes gained on his approach shots, 2nd in stokes gained around the green, and 3rd in strikes gained putting. Those numbers are very much outliers for him, with the exception of putting where he's not completely awful. But he's never had a good short game inside 100 yards like he did that week. Last year, he was 53rd in SG on his approach shots, 146th in SG around the green, and 20th in SG putting. It doesn't help him to hit the ball 400 yards if he's not able to give himself makeable birdie putts. His short-game is just so bad, he's not going to win another US Open either unless he has another uncharacteristic week like he did in 2020.

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his back injury? No it wasn't. The only injury that was a result of any sort of stupidity was him tearing his ACL back in the late 00s doing seal training stuff that was completely unnecessary. Back injuries happen.

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Yeah but Tiger pushed himself to physical extremes in pursuit of glory more than other golfer. He ruined his body trying to squeeze every drop of juice he could get on and off the course. Part of being "disciplined" is knowing where to draw the line between beast mode and injury risk. There's a happy medium. And golf is a sport where that is entirely on the participant. Lawrence Taylor isn't going to run onto the putting green and blindside you. Shaq isn't going to slam into you in the tee box. Clayton Kershaw isn't going to throw a fastball at your head when you are walking down the fairway. A golfer has control of his own fate. And Tiger ruined his by pushing his body beyond the breaker switch and burning the candle at both ends. Jack didn't and that's why Jack is the GOAT.

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Scheffler

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is human Ambien

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His wife is a smokeshow, though.

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His wife is a smokeshow, though.

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It would be odd if a tall professional golfer from Highland Park didn't have a good looking wife.

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This is a bad take. Tiger changed the game forever. Golf is 10x as popular now than it was pre-Tiger. It’s never going back to what it was.

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you are agreeing with my take, you just don't see the way I'm framing it.

Tiger did change golf forever and it is more popular because of him. Golf is like a stock price that hasn't recovered after recession (Tiger not dominating). It's still higher than it ever was during the 80s but it's not reaching new records anymore

Tiger has drive but I don’t think its the type of drive that leads to consistency. He repeats the same cycle where he has success, gets bored/restless and creates obstacles for him to overcome so he can start over. He has a history of self-sabotage. He’s also such a perfectionist that sometimes he misses the forest for the trees

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I probably wouldnt give too much of a shite about golf, either, if I had $50M in the bank and this locked with me in a Florida beach house every day....

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You may be joking but when I look at these young golfers that break onto the scene and promise to be the next big thing, only to fall off a couple of years, I look and see when they got married. It's uncanny how consistently performance dips after they get hitched.

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You may be joking but when I look at these young golfers that break onto the scene and promise to be the next big thing, only to fall off a couple of years, I look and see when they got married. It's uncanny how consistently performance dips after they get hitched.

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Well, yeah, it's a lot harder to do nothing but play golf all day long every day of the week when you have a wife and kid(s) at home. Priorities change and so does being able to focus on just one thing (golf). And in an individual sport where the margin for error is razor thin, it makes a lot of sense unless you're just that driven to be great, which very few are. I think there's also a pretty decent correlation between the best ever at their sports and not always being the best husbands and fathers. Jordan is a pretty good example of this, as is Tiger. It's just really hard to do both well, and people with more money than they could ever spend tend to value their families more than personal glory on the golf course.

As someone who has played the game for 45 years, including brushes with the highest level, I can state that there will probably never be a single dominant figure in professional golf in our lifetimes.

What made the dominant figures of the game (Jack, Tiger, Hogan) dominant was the fact they were unicorns. Tiger was really the first to focus on physical fitness/training, unleashing the "athlete as golfer" phenomenon. Now, ALL the pro golfers hit the gym after rounds and not the bar. Jack's mental approach was diametrically opposite of Arnold's "hit, find it, hit again" philosophy. Hogan's work ethic ("the secret is in the dirt") was unmatched.

I'm not certain what breakthrough can be made by just one person to make them the dominant professional golfer anymore.