Is there really a way to compare golf to other sports for landmark achievements?

Gary Van Sickle SI article

no good way to compare... greatest is Lance's 7 in a row TourDe France... without a doubt in my mind.

I would agree about Lance. He's pretty much the man. Not that Tiger is a slouch, but that would be (at least in my opinion, certainly someone will disagree) like winning the masters 7 times straight or 7 straight majors. Hats off to both of them though.

Tiger has won 25% of the events he has played in.

I gotta go along with the Lance comparison.

"He already won a PGA at Medinah once, and now the course has been lengthened, which only serves to Tiger-proof it even more. (Tiger-proofing is an oxymoronic phrase that means hardly anyone but Tiger will ever win on that course again. For details, see Augusta National Golf Club.)"

that's funny

Most sports have their outstanding athletes that have done things you can't believe. Lance's 7 tours is a very impressive achievement, but there are several cyclists who've won 5. What about Steve Redgrave's golf medals at five consecutive Olympic games? Or Mark Spitz's (?) 7 gold medals in one?

However, if you really want to see someone outperforming everybody else in their field, Don Bradman (who I suppose most of you have never heard of) was I think the best. He was a cricketer and his test average (which is basically how you measure a batsman) can be found here. The seventh column headed "Ave" is the interesting one. Look at how bunched everyone is except the guy at the top. Someone did a statistical analysis of the mean and variance of those averages and estimated that someone as good as Bradman would come along once every 6000 years.

Dominance is the key word for me here. With a 25.5% win rate on the PGA tour over 10 years Tiger is definately dominant within his own sport. Armstrong was also completely dominant in his own sport. Schumacher winning the F1 world championship 7 times made him dominant for about 7 years.

A lot of other great sports people had one or two good years, maybe even 5 - 7 good years but a 20 yr old Tiger won his 5th event as a Pro and he has had 10 years continued success since then. I read that if he continues at the same rate he will have beaten Snead's tour win record of 86 within the next 7 years by which time I also think Tiger will have Jack's major record equalled or beaten.

A lot of people think Tiger is only just starting to enter his most successful period where they believe he will eclipse any other golfer who has come before him. I think he is without doubt the greatest golfer ever and probably the greatest sportsman.

It's difficult to compare great prefessional sports people in different sports, to be a great u have got to beat previous records, so Tiger is like Armstrong, Schumacher, Redgrave and Valentino Rossi! They all have or are gowing to break records in their own sports.

Al

And bradman got 0 (a duck) in his last ever innings if he got 1 run it wouldve been over a hundred!!!!

However, if you really want to see someone outperforming everybody else in their field, Don Bradman (who I suppose most of you have never heard of) was I think the best. He was a cricketer and his test average (which is basically how you measure a batsman) can be found here. The seventh column headed "Ave" is the interesting one. Look at how bunched everyone is except the guy at the top. Someone did a statistical analysis of the mean and variance of those averages and estimated that someone as good as Bradman would come along once every 6000 years.
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He needed 4 for a 100 average.