Tiger or Roger?

[jimotis4heisman]

personally i watched tigers back nine yesterday. might be one of the most enjoyable athletes for me to watch, i love nothing more than watching tiger pounce...

 

[Mike80]

I voted for Tiger for 3 reasons:

1) No one has ever tried to "Rodger-proof" a Tennis court. Tennis has been played the same way for about 100 years or so. Golf course designers are constantly trying to find a way to design a course that Tiger won't smoke.

2) While Federer is easily the best player of his generation, Tiger might be the best EVER in his sport.

3) When Federer has a mis-hit, he's still in the game with the next serve. IF Woods puts one in the water, it's 2 strokes and that is a huge margin in golf.

 

[Buckeye Buh Nim]

I voted for Tiger for 3 reasons:

1) No one has ever tried to "Rodger-proof" a Tennis court. Tennis has been played the same way for about 100 years or so. Golf course designers are constantly trying to find a way to design a course that Tiger won't smoke.

2) While Federer is easily the best player of his generation, Tiger might be the best EVER in his sport.

Can't speak to point 3, but I can to 1&2. The only difference from court a to court b is the surface, so you can't within the constricts of tennis, Federer proof a court. The attempts to Tiger Proof courses are dumb. Lengthening a course does not make it harder for Tiger relative to the field, it does the opposite. Since he is so long off the tee longer courses give him an advantadge over the bottom 25% of the field. The best way to Tiger Proof a course is to make all the fairways bend from left to right, to shorten the course, and to put Bunkers on the left side of all holes at or about 280 yds.. Courses are being lengthened not because of Tiger, but because Tour Driving stats in general are bigger.

As far as point 2 goes, Federer is approaching that status as well. He has an insane match streak going, and it isn't even close. If he continues racking up wins and majors at this rate he will have surpassed Sampras, et al.... as the greatest player ever.

One thing in Tigers favor (other than the playing the field argument) is that Golf is more popular than tennis and as such, you have better and better golfers in a relative way. That is to say the difference between the abilities of golfers at the Masters from top to bottom is less than at the Tennis majors.