Ha!! Maybe watching EB & D before posting helps -- that & some wine! Plus, this is just fun - not giving instruction.

Good work! Lowest stroke ave in D1 history - that was my benchmark. I'm good with the different era debate, as I'm with you totally on that, & I know you know your golf history. If you ever come around a guy from tech who played with Bryce, ask about him - they were all good and in awe of him. He was stupid good. It's pretty amazing. I'm not knocking any others, as I think Phil probably achieved more in 4 years than anyone (3 NCAA's, 1 US AM, 1 Tour win, and 21 college wins), but Bryce's average is best. Unfortunately, one of my students (Nick Cassini) had a great year that year, but got beat out by Bryce for all the player of the year awards due to Bryce's record breaking year. It's all debatable though - just like the Tiger stuff in this thread.

Bryce finished 2nd in his first PGA Tour start, then started working with Kostis, took him years to get back on tour.

Nice to see him having success now though.

To me, the most impressive stat was in each his junior and senior year he only had one finish outside the top 10.

I don't know if Lindy's numbers are on Okie State's website, but if not, I seriously doubt anybody will be able to pull his numbers. I do have some of them in my library however!

BO

i followed bryce at duke during the ncaas along with dj trahan luke donald and lucas glover. bryce was great i would have thought all these guys would have done more by now but from that week the one i had the least expectation from was luke donald.

Cool! I'll have to look Lindy up online. I've heard the name & had heard he was the real deal, but don't know anything else about him.

Bo - I know sometimes people give ya hell on here (& sometimes it's maybe justified ), but I like it that you go by facts & are truly old school - none of this "if he'd made 8 more putts he would have won" crap, or "this guy doesn't care so he tries to finish 2nd."

Nothing better than a good discussion where I learn something new.

On that note - I'm off to bed.

Uh, we all figured you would....ldo.

dude, go to bed, you're scaring me posting at this hour

The ldo was in your honor webmaster....woke up at 2 and couldn't go back to sleep, just to excited to help people with their electricity needs.

ldo.

Interesting paper that someone from Columbia did:

http://www.columbia.edu/~mnb2/broadi...e_20110408.pdf

Haven't had a chance to read the whole article in detail but checked out the charts toward the end and they are fantastic. I could probably pour over those charts for a couple of hours and not be bored.

Quick first impression: The data really seems to back up Ship's assertion that the old "drive for show/putt for dough" cliche is a myth. If you look at the overall strokes gained they are highly coordinated to the "long" or over 100 yard ranks both by the top and bottom performers. The putting numbers are much more all over the place suggesting its not just a "putting contest" like we've all heard people say.

Good lord Tiger was an absolute beast before 2010. No weaknesses to speak of and was basically as good of a putter as Brad Faxon. I'm a pretty big Tiger fanboy and even I wouldn't have thought he was as statistically superior as he was. Also, the data used in this paper doesn't even include his play from 99-01, probably the most dominant stretch of professional golf ever played. Uncanny.

Nxt,

Make sure you have a change of drawers before clicking on the link to that paper. You just might pull a Forrest Gump a couple of pages in.

Thanks for the link. Lets just put a key finding out there:

Tiger was better than his peers at everything, the biggest part of his edge in the long game. Who knew?

Already read it a few weeks ago. Here's another interesting one.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sourc...xXMQaYZix2rPKg

I'm leaning towards starting a "who are the bad golf forum p0sters?" thread

mcnabbstare.gif

Isn't that almost a perfect ratio of strokes per round vs. strokes gained though? So yeah he gains more on long game vs. putting, but he hits more long shots than putts.

Unless his long game is +2.08 wrt his peers, I wouldn't expect his only need to putt like his old self in order to approach his earlier edge. My impression is that his long game isn't +2.08. I really don't know. He was pretty good at Pebble, and it is early in the year.

I don't think so, he'd have to take 3x as many "long" shots compared to "putts" per round for that to be the case. . Just some numbers off the top of my head... Tiger's scoring average is probably around 69 over this data. Putts per round is probably 28? Short shots per round(inside 100 yds not on green) is prob 10ish? That only leaves 31 long shots per round.

Per shot breakdown.
Long- .067
Short- .042
Putts- .025

So even on a per shot basis, putting is his smallest advantage over the field.

I'd really love to see this data from the past 5 months. I think his long game number would be way up there based on how he is hitting the ball. I think his short # would be slightly worse and his putting # would be much worse. If you look at the table with the different players and their breakdown I would assume Tigers #s for the last 5 months would look A LOT like Sergios from that data sample. Great long game, better than average short game, horrible on the greens

Ok, I think you're saying Phil is lazy because he doesn't have double digit majors against "regular tour players" -- figuring Tiger took 14 of his chances, and he certainly blew a couple on his own, his opportunities to win 10+ majors are still there. It doesn't help when you have a player like TW winning so many in that time frame. If Phil was 10 years older, I would think he'd have more since he wouldn't have competed in the TW era.

Just out of curiosity, do you consider Faldo, Price, Seve, Hogan, Watson, or Snead "greats?" None of them have 10+ majors. And, seeing as there is only one active player with more majors than Phil (TW), I'd say in his era, he's pretty freaking good. I'd say double digit majors is a very high standard since only 3 players have 10+ majors. Now if you want to open the can of worms about is the US Am a major, then add that to Phil's resume as well as Jacks and Tiger's.

Either way, I can't agree with the statement that Phil is either lazy or not good.

phil is a great talent. he has def blown plenty of majors. i think again this goes to my personal perception of the modern competition he should have if not 10 close to it. his numbers should be closer to watson player than to floyd.

faldo? i think he wound up bout where he should.

for a regular player phils had a great career for an elite i personally dont think he got the results that matched his talent level. if history is an indicator phil only has 6 more years to win.

maybe im crazy but i would trade 4 majors and 36 more wins for 10 majors and 12 more wins. its majors,rings,bracelets that separates the greats.

leo, would you say that you are a casual fan?

Gotcha - so only TW, Jack, and Hagen would be elite by the 10+ mark. I'm sure Phil would trade wins for majors as well, as would someone like Sergio, Jack, Tiger, etc.

Seeing as only 18 people ever have more majors than Phil, I'd consider that better than a "regular" player.

Still wondering, do you consider Hogan, Seve, Watson, or Snead "Greats?" I know you listed Trevino as a "Great" yet in his career he is only 2 majors ahead of Phil (who is still playing & by your calculation, he'll have 24 more shots to win majors), that is, of course, without counting his US Am as a major.

Just trying to figure what you determine makes a player a "Great." The line is a little blurred it seems.

shu, i would say that ever since i gave up the dellusion of ever playing for a living i did become more casual. but during my golf days it was 24hrs a day. ppl would ask if my remote was broken cause it would be golf channel 24hrs a day. sure i watched other stuff but id watch all the classics big 3 golf. so for a long time that was it.

i have also been around athletes from diff sports (ex was a world class swimmer) i as well did decent in sports and have been offered staff positions in my life. there is a lot of cross over between sports. common denominators. and like i said perhaps my perception is a bit skewed and maybe my expectations based on my experience does not match with golf. thats why i like listening to ship and jt they have played at a higher level than me by far.

but shu i have seen lots of guys that people fawn over that really get by a lot on pure talent and dont do the little things that would make them unstoppable.

Name them. Be specific. I'll start,

1) Winged Foot. 06
2) Shinnecock. 04 (I wouldn't count this).
3) Pinehurst. 99 (I think it is ridiculous to count this).

He's been in contention a lot, and he has fired himself out of contention. A bunch of seconds at the US Open and some Sunday disappointments at Augusta. He took a lot of heat for that over his career. I think WF is the only place where, imo, he gave one away.

ahh...I wasn't thinking that was the direction you were going. I was thinking you were saying....**** I don't know what I am thinking, I've been up since 2 a.m.