LOL.

If I ever stop laughing I might actually respond to that.

John Daly won all his majors pre Tiger Woods. He has 1 luckboxed victory in the Tiger era and 0 top 10's in majors. Super elite player obviously.

Phil Mickelson conveniently began working out with a personal trainer in early 2002. No heavy lifting trying to get big, but a lot of golf specific workouts. 6 days per week. His record in majors from 2002-2006 speaks for itself. 20 majors, 3 wins, 11 top 10s.

And are there any Gary Player's out on tour right now? Can someone point me to the last 5'6" 150lbs major winner? Or how about anyone that small that even competes on a regular basis? Player's fitness level is the main reason for his success. Due to the lack of fitness of everyone else, Player was able to close the gap and compete despite his gigantic size disadvantage. That is about out of the realm of possibility now, it is tough for someone so small in today's day and age to overcome it by out working everyone in the gym.... bc everyone else is also working hard in the gym.

Disclaimer: Just realized it must be the fight Player had in him, all these pussies out on Tour don't have it in them to do what Player did.

Fitness matters A LOT in golf nowadays, if you can't see that then just LOL. It is easily responsible for a decent amount of the extra distance players enjoy, and if you take 2 players of the exact same skill level and give one of them a 5% distance advantage the shorter guy is at a huge disadvantage.

Elite players of the 60s MAY be about as physically fit as today's average Tour player. They are blown out of the water by the likes of Tiger, DJ, Woodland etc.

The top few players of the 60s would beat DJ, Woodland, and many of the etc. That's the point. But thanks for basically coming right out now and claiming Jack Nicklaus of the 60s can't touch Gary Woodland's game because Woodland is so buff.

The rest of your post isn't really worth responding to, but a few points nonetheless: Mickelson was winning regularly before he hired a personal trainer to go from fat to less fat. And the point isn't that Daly is super mega elite today, just that if that fat ass old POS who isn't anywhere near fit can be a top 100 US player in the "fitness age", then guys who had both much better skills and much better fitness will compete better than you think. Name another sport where journeymen in their 40s can win the biggest prizes in their sport? But you think a reasonably fit HOF golfer from 1975 has no chance? Hah. Tom Watson is still competing and he was one of those 1970s guys.

Some specific evidence would be nice here. I think the working out may help them deal with the heat or prevent injuries but I don't see any evidence that it is "easily responsible for a decent amount of the extra distance." If it comes down to being more physically fit how come a fat mid 40's recent ex smoker like Angel Cabrera is hitting past all these guys. What's the equivalent to that in other sports? Or the equivalent to someone like Watson or Norman still being competitive well past 50?

I have already showed the specific evidence. There is a roughly 12.5% difference gap between the Tour average in 1968 and 2009. According to some club testing and estimating, technology accounts for roughly 7.5% of that difference. Everyone screams and hollers about technology/distance helping out today's players so much. Well something else must account for the remaining 5% difference in distance, and IMO that is all physical. So if the 7.5% increase due to technology is such a huge deal, how is 5% increase due to physical fitness not a big deal?

Also your's and ctryi's definition of competitive must be much different than mine. Tom Watson has no wins past age 48, 2 major top 10s(outliers much?), and 0 other PGA Tour top 10s.

Greg Norman also has 1..... 1 top 10 in a PGA Tour event(British Open) since turning 50.

Super competitive in their 50s!

It's worth mentioning that Watson and Norman's most visible post-50 performances were at the Open Championship, where you can easily get by being a short hitter. The golf ball rolls forever, and hitting short controlled shots and getting the ball on the ground early is preferred to bombing it. I'm guessing these two performances were the reasons he mentioned these two names in particular.

Posting pictures of "fat guys" like Phil or Jimenez is also dumb because when we talk golf fitness, we aren't talking about being in shape to run a 10k or something like that. It's mostly strength/power in short bursts (read: the golf swing) and improved flexibility and agility. So you can be a chubbier guy who lifts and does golf-specific exercises and you can use that improved strength to his advantage. Look at other sports - compare these guys to someone like Prince Fielder or David Ortiz.

It isn't exactly a complicated point of view. Back then they literally did not have meaningful weight training in other sports. Let alone golf. (I mean, I'm a huge Nebraska football fan; we brought in a guy who started the first ever college football strength training program here at the end of the '60s. We promptly won two national titles.)

We go from that era to now having tons of health and fitness research being done, a far, far better understanding of the human body and how to train it, physical trainers involved in every sport, vastly improved nutrition, etc etc. I have no idea how you even begin to argue that fitness doesn't matter in golf - you get improved distance, better contact and spin from the rough, greater stamina both on the course for those 5-hour rounds and for day-to-day practice routines...it goes on and on.

Here is a comparison between the top 10% longest hitters today against the bottom 10% shortest hitters. The shorter hitters are 11% lighter on average and hit it 10% shorter. Let's compare career stats (admittedly not perfect as length can vary over time, but the bottom 10% were never the big hitters on Tour, so good enough for a rough idea).



Low and behold, the biggest and longest players today don't even have much edge on the smallest and shortest hitters today (using this crude comparison), never mind hall of famers from 60s/70s who were long for their era. I wouldn't expect the comparison to be stunning considering other factors at play, but if distance was a significant edge, we'd expect to see considerably better performance from the longest hitters on Tour compared to the shortest.

Note: I could have even made the comparison look far worse for the long hitters if I compared top 15% against bottom 15%. Stricker, Furyk, and Choi are in bottom 15% of distance, and no big names would be added between top 10-15%.

So you can keep claiming distance, strength, and weight are decisive advantages today, but the numbers simply don't support it. And the elite players of yesteryear weren't flimsy toothpicks. For example, Tom Kite was a relatively diminutive 5'9", 170lb, but then again Luke Donald is 5'9", 160lb, hits it short, and is the world #1 today. Take a look at a few photos of the forearms on better players from the past--they were quite fit. Kite looks like he'd kick Luke's ass if you compared them.

You mainly have offered that today's average player is longer, most of which you admit is due to technology. Even today, that edge doesn't translate to more eliteness by any clear measure.

hahahahaohwow.jpg

looks like im done here

I agree.

I mean the fact that you actually think you showed something there is really hilarious

on a side note... i think improved golf instruction has had a notable impact on the difference as well. with all the technological advances in tracking ball flight and swing characteristics, the swing has been so analyzed, that the desired characteristics in a swing for optimum ball flight and distance are very clear.

not sure if that is all part of equipment advances but i think those advances have really revolutionized golf instruction in general. that might have something to do with the younger tour players coming up with great fundimentals.

Again you keep bringing skill up. That is not what this argument is really about. It is about physical fitness, strength, and athleticism.

Fact: The average Tour player today would hit the ball longer compared to the average Tour player from 1968, given they are using the same technology.

Also using your "crude" comparison, the results are hilarious.

Long hitters:
Average age almost definitely under 30
3 Majors
30 PGA/EPGA Tour wins


Short hitters:
Only 2 players under the age of 30
3 Majors
53 PGA/EPGA Tour wins(1/2 of which come from Luke and David Toms)

How is this such a great example again? The short hitters are probably somewhere around 6-8 years older on average. So in the next 6-8 years you would bet the long hitters don't get 1 more major/23 PGA/EPGA events between them? I'd probably take that bet if it didn't last 8 years. LOL.

+1

Yeah, he used CURRENT driving distance data compared with CAREER results, where the "short hitters" are almost all guys who played most of their careers pre-Tiger and pre-strength-training (thus affecting their CAREER results) and who are now getting older and losing distance to the field purely on age, thus influencing their CURRENT driving distance. The short hitters have about 3x as many events played, ffs. (Not to mention that his data actually show the long hitters winning twice as often as the short hitters, but, again, that is irrelevant for the reasons that you and I just pointed out.)

Also the more I look at the driving distance stat, the more absurd I think it is just because of how they measure it(only twice per round, on holes facing different directions, that players are likely to hit driver off)

Like for Tiger, it says his driving distance this year is 295. Can anyone remember the last time they saw Tiger hit a driver under 300 yards? I can't. I can recall plenty that have traveled 320+ but can't recall almost any that were even under 290. And for all the ones you see go 320+, think of how many would have to go like 270-290 to offset that. I think Tiger get's a ton of non-drivers in there skewing his stat(he probably the most conservative off the tee compared to the longest guys on Tour).

Yes, conveniently the shortest hitters that are close in age to the long hitters have severely under performed their bigger/longer/stronger brethren.

Selection bias ftw as well. Selecting the players below average in one category pretty much assures they'll be above average in others.

Gary Player and other 60s/70s elites (the best in their era, this is the focus group remember) would be above average in many categories if they were on Tour today. I freely admitted the comparison had flaws and was using it as a rough look of whether distance advantages of 5% really are as critical as claimed (iow, so critical that anybody pre modern era could not compete at top of game with such a handicap.)

Or are you jumping on the side that has implied that Nicklaus et al couldn't even compete against Gary Woodland?

Anyway, I'm done here.

Remember how we were talking about levels of fitness, mostly as it relates to distance off the tee?

In your opinion, is anyone from the 60s/70s/pre-Tiger era more athletic/fitter/stronger than Gary Woodland?

Do you not realize that all things being equal(let's just assume for now that golfers of the past were as skilled as today's golfers), that a 5% increase in distance from physical fitness is gigantic?

Off the tee that is roughly 15 extra yards. Into the greens it is roughly a club. Did you know that the further off the tee you hit it the closer you are to the hole? And that the closer you are to the hole the more likely you are to hit it close? And that it is easier to hit an 8 iron closer to the hole compared to a 7 iron?

Just as an example....

on typical 450 yard par 4, Tour players today hit it 288 off the tee, will have 162 to the flag, and a 8 iron in hand. They will hit the green ~62.2% with an average proximity to the flat of 23 feet. The average tour player's score relative to par from 150-175 yards out is -.1

a player at a 5% distance disadvantage hit's it ~274 off the tee, will have 176 to the flag, and a 6 iron in hand. They will hit the green ~53% of the time to an average proximity to the flag of 34 feet. The average tour player's score relative to par from 175-200 is +.05 though this player is at the very front of this range so it's probably closer to +.025

That distance advantage will add up over time.

Top ten in a major is competing at the highest levels. What higher level of competition is there in golf than being in contention on the back 9 on Sunday of a major? You just don't see guys like Watson and Norman in other sports because athleticism is important in those sports.

Who said that?

Man this argument sucks so bad. So because 2 old guys had 3 incredible weeks, on courses that do a great job of limiting the advantages of longer players this means that athleticism isn't important in golf.

OK. You nailed it, I don't even know why golfers even work out to be honest. There are no benefits.