Tiger Woods (Offical Thread)

[Wingate1217]

Guys, I really don't know if golf is a sport or not, however I find it interesting that some of the world's best athletes cannot play golf worth a hoot. Charles Barkley to name just one.

Having played baseball at a fairly high level, I do think you have to be athletic to play the game, but I believe you still have to have a certain degree of athleticism to hit a golf ball. Maybe not to the same degree of a ball player hitting a split finger but it requires a certain amount of talent to hit a high fade, low fade, high draw, etc...

There are not the same only different...and that is okay with me.... :)

 

[zincfinger]

Guys, I really don't know if golf is a sport or not, however I find it interesting that some of the world's best athletes cannot play golf worth a hoot. Charles Barkley to name just one.

Having played baseball at a fairly high level, I do think you have to be athletic to play the game, but I believe you still have to have a certain degree of athleticism to hit a golf ball. Maybe not to the same degree of a ball player hitting a split finger but it requires a certain amount of talent to hit a high fade, low fade, high draw, etc...

There are not the same only different...and that is okay with me.... :)

You can pick any two areas of specialization and say the same thing. Compare Charles Barkley to a great bowler, or billiards player, or darts player. I guarantee he would be terrible by comparison. Does that make a great bowler, or billiards player, or darts player, a great athlete? Heck, compare Charles Barkley to a master carpenter. He'd look the fool. Is a master carpenter a great athlete? I'm not saying Tiger isn't a great athlete, and I have no problem with calling him one. I'm just saying that there is no objective distinction that can be made between athleticism and skill. They overlap in a continuous seam, and the dividing line that anyone draws is purely subjective.

 

[Wingate1217]

You can pick any two areas of specialization and say the same thing. Compare Charles Barkley to a great bowler, or billiards player, or darts player. I guarantee he would be terrible by comparison. Does that make a great bowler, or billiards player, or darts player, a great athlete? Heck, compare Charles Barkley to a master carpenter. He'd look the fool. Is a master carpenter a great athlete? I'm not saying Tiger isn't a great athlete, and I have no problem with calling him one. I'm just saying that there is no objective distinction that can be made between athleticism and skill. They overlap in a continuous seam, and the dividing line that anyone draws is purely subjective.

All I was saying is that you can't compare the two. Any sport requires a degree of athleticism coupled with skill...although one my be harder to achieve than the other....

 

[Mac]

Each sport has its own level of degree of athleticism. If golf isn't a sport then you have to throw out tennis, bowling, etc...as sports. But athleticism is irrelevant whether or not an activity is considered a sport. It makes no sense. My major (Sport and Leisure Studies) we have discussion about this all the time. I bet if you ask 95 (or higher) out of 100 people they will either say baseball, football, or basketball when asked what game defines sport. It's because those 3 sports have much more of an overwhelming audience and more know abouts than the other sports (such as golf, tennis, etc).

Definition of a sport:
An activity involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often undertaken competitively. (Such as golf, baseball, football, etc)

Definition of play/game:
An activity that doesn't have a set of rules and can be made up as you go. It may or may not involve physical exertion.

 

[zincfinger]

All I was saying is that you can't compare the two. Any sport requires a degree of athleticism coupled with skill...although one my be harder to achieve than the other....

I understand your point, and I largely agree with it. I'm just saying that the question, what is athleticism, what is sport, is even a bit more subjective than what your point suggests. What defines athleticism, and what defines sport? I wouldn't say darts is a sport, or that a great darts thrower is a great athlete. But you could argue that excellence in darts requires innate hand-eye coordination. Darts is largely a skill game, but so too is basketall, or baseball, or football, and fundamentally, there's no way to separate learned skill from athleticism, in virtually any competitive endeavor.

And the same is true of any "athletic" endeavor outside of a core of purely physical measurements. Because the real measure of "can you do activity x" is not whether you can do it, it's whether you can do it better than everyone else. I could never run a 4.4 forty, but I can hit a 300+ yard drive down the middle. I just can't do it as often as Tiger, or virtually any other golfer on tour. Given enough whacks at it, I could probably hit a 100 mph fastball once. I just couldn't do it as often as an MLB player. My point is that this is a completely subjective question, on all fronts. I agree with you that you can't compare sports. I'd just go a step further and say that you can't really objectively say what sports are, or what athleticism is, unless you restrict yourself to a core definition that only includes fundamental measurables of speed, strength, leaping ability, etc. And by that measure, the "greatest athletes" would be determined in a training facility/laboratory, not on a field of competition

 

[mooktarr]

An activity involving physical exertion and skill .

This alone rules out golf as a sport.

 

[LitlBuck]

I was going to stay out of this discussion but I just couldn't:).

i think you can take a "pretty good" football, basketball, baseball, or even hockey (had to include that sport for JO) and make an individual into a decent golfer, tennis player, bowler, or Hustler with the proper instruction but if you took that same person and reversed the sports in the majority of instances the person would not be very competitive in the other sport. I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you are a athlete with the proper training you could probably be fairly decent at the so-called country club sports but I do not think the opposite would be true.

 

[BuckeyeNation27]

No he's not a bad example. He's the perfect example. He was a great athlete, no doubt. But I notice that you didn't cite any stolen base records or fielding percentages. What you noted is that the guy could stand in the batters box, swing a bat with tremendous proficiency, and using exceptional hand-eye coordination to hit the better than anyone else in his day.

He also did a pretty damn good job of standing on the mound and throwing the ball.

I'm baffled how that takes more athleticism that what Tiger does. The only difference is that the ball is moving and its bigger. In fact, when Tiger hits the ball, he actually has to have touch, some finesse - like a shooter in basketball. As with a pitcher, he has to use intelligence and creativity.

But make no mistake about it: To hit the ball like Tiger does, you have to be a tremendous athlete. If you don't think so, you haven't truly played the game of golf beyond simple hacking.



I could show you a picture of Babe's fat ass chewing on a cigar and ask the same question. The only difference is that Daly "could" have been really good and the Babe was great.

Tiger is great.



Your definition simply differs from mine. I understand that your point though. You hate golf. You hate Tiger Woods. I get it.

i don't hate golf. don't let that stop you from putting words in my mouth though.

 

[Wingate1217]

I was going to stay out of this discussion but I just couldn't:).

i think you can take a "pretty good" football, basketball, baseball, or even hockey (had to include that sport for JO) and make an individual into a decent golfer, tennis player, bowler, or Hustler with the proper instruction but if you took that same person and reversed the sports in the majority of instances the person would not be very competitive in the other sport. I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you are a athlete with the proper training you could probably be fairly decent at the so-called country club sports but I do not think the opposite would be true.

I think in every sport there are people who can cross over. Not every golfer will excel in another sport but there are a few. Hale Irwin for example was a golfer primarily but found time to be a pretty decent Big 12 DB. I get your point and for the most part agree with it....

 

[zincfinger]

i think you can take a "pretty good" football, basketball, baseball, or even hockey (had to include that sport for JO) and make an individual into a decent golfer, tennis player, bowler, or Hustler with the proper instruction but if you took that same person and reversed the sports in the majority of instances the person would not be very competitive in the other sport.

I don't think so, and I suspect your definition of "decent" may be inconsistent. Give Michael Jordan or Jim Thorpe a couple years of golf lessons, and you may have a "decent" golfer in relation to other amateur golfers. But either guy would be absolutely destroyed if he went against the pros. It might not be as embarrassing as it would be if you put Phil Mickelson in the NHL after a couple years of training, solely because hockey, unlike golf, isn't a head-to-head contact sport. But the absolute domination would be comparable.

 

[LitlBuck]

I don't think so, and I suspect your definition of "decent" may be inconsistent. Give Michael Jordan or Jim Thorpe a couple years of golf lessons, and you may have a "decent" golfer in relation to other amateur golfers. But either guy would be absolutely destroyed if he went against the pros. It might not be as embarrassing as it would be if you put Phil Mickelson in the NHL after a couple years of training, solely because hockey, unlike golf, isn't a head-to-head contact sport. But the absolute domination would be comparable.

I totally disagree with you. I think if you are a decent athlete you can be taught to play golf or tennis but just because you're a decent golfer or tennis player I do not think you could become a decent basketball or football player. It is hard to define the word "decent" but an athlete can be taught to play certain sports and become fairly good at them but I do not think the same can be said as a person who plays an individual sport. I am not necessarily talking about playing these "sports" professionally.

 

[3074326]

Each sport has its own level of degree of athleticism. If golf isn't a sport then you have to throw out tennis, bowling, etc...as sports. But athleticism is irrelevant whether or not an activity is considered a sport. It makes no sense. My major (Sport and Leisure Studies) we have discussion about this all the time. I bet if you ask 95 (or higher) out of 100 people they will either say baseball, football, or basketball when asked what game defines sport. It's because those 3 sports have much more of an overwhelming audience and more know abouts than the other sports (such as golf, tennis, etc).

Definition of a sport:
An activity involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often undertaken competitively. (Such as golf, baseball, football, etc)

Definition of play/game:
An activity that doesn't have a set of rules and can be made up as you go. It may or may not involve physical exertion.

Going to have to disagree with throwing out tennis as a sport.. you pretty much have to be in top physical condition to finish a game of tennis.

Do you have to be very athletic to play golf? No. Do you have to be very athletic to excel at golf? I'm not sure. If you're on the PGA tour, you're excelling. Even if you don't win. There are some pretty nonathletic guys on the tour. This is different with sports such as football, hockey, basketball, where you must be an athlete to get to that level. Tiger is in excellent physical condition, but does that make him one of the top athletes in the world? If your definition of athlete is that a person has physical tools such as being faster, stronger, and bigger than the competition, no.* If your definition is that someone is the best at his sport, yes, he's certainly one of the top athletes.

*Size (not strength) and speed don't really have an impact in golf that I know of. Tiger could be the slowest guy and the shortest guy on tour and still be the best, it's his skill at the game of golf that makes him the best. That doesn't necessarily require athletic ability, by my definition. Does his physical fitness help? Definitely. But there are those on the tour who are not in great physical condition who excel, but not to the level of Tiger. But they're still better than most of the world.

This argument is never going to end because people have different definitions.

 

[Mac]

Going to have to disagree with throwing out tennis as a sport.. you pretty much have to be in top physical condition to finish a game of tennis.

Do you have to be very athletic to play golf? No. Do you have to be very athletic to excel at golf? I'm not sure. If you're on the PGA tour, you're excelling. Even if you don't win. There are some pretty nonathletic guys on the tour. This is different with sports such as football, hockey, basketball, where you must be an athlete to get to that level. Tiger is in excellent physical condition, but does that make him one of the top athletes in the world? If your definition of athlete is that a person has physical tools such as being faster, stronger, and bigger than the competition, no.* If your definition is that someone is the best at his sport, yes, he's certainly one of the top athletes.

*Size (not strength) and speed don't really have an impact in golf that I know of. Tiger could be the slowest guy and the shortest guy on tour and still be the best, it's his skill at the game of golf that makes him the best. That doesn't necessarily require athletic ability, by my definition. Does his physical fitness help? Definitely. But there are those on the tour who are not in great physical condition who excel, but not to the level of Tiger. But they're still better than most of the world.

This argument is never going to end because people have different definitions.

I played Tennis, Soccer, Lacrosse, and Rec. Golf in H.S. Tennis took the least amount of physical exertion in my opinion. Just because walking about 6800 yards in the middle of the day (85 degree plus) took more out of me. Now that being said, I'm not saying that it doesn't require you to be in shape, because you do. I just feel if you do throw golf out as a sport, you have to throw Tennis out too. Tennis is more about a 10-15 second burst (IF THAT) with about 20+ seconds break in between every point. Not to mention a break in between every game. I don't know where I'm going with that but it's hard to compare sports just because they each have there differences

Golf is more of an agility/endurance sport just as others but that's pretty much the only attribute that is needed. Other sports require other attributes such as speed, strength, Break Tackle (hahaha had to throw an NCAA attribute in there as a joke) :)

 

[3074326]

Tennis took less physical exertion than recreational golf? I've played both and found tennis to be much more physically challenging than golf. Tennis easier to play, but athletic ability (speed, great physical fitness, etc) definitely is needed to play tennis and I'm not so sure it's necessary to play golf. Just my opinion. That's not meant to be an insult to golfers, I just found the constant running back and forth to be more exhausting than the constant walking around.

EDIT: Your edit changes my opinion, I'm more suited to walking than running around. That might have something to do with it. I can walk all day without problems, hence golf not doing much for me and tennis leaving me gassed after a game.

 

[LitlBuck]

I think to settle this disagreement we would all have to get into a room and the last one standing would make the decision but would that person be the best athlete and in what sport