Blogger’s post today about if Tiger is over or not got me back on the numbers, and I was trying to see if I could place a value on Major performance other than just the total wins, so that the players could be charted against each other.
I came up with a method first, honestly not knowing how this would appear. Regular readers know where my loyalty lies, so I didn’t want to try and reach a predetermined outcome.
The method used was to take each players age and for the four majors take 1 divided by their finish. Then add those 4 values to get a cumulative “Major Performance” value for that year of age.
For example,
Lets say Jack finished Masters #1, US Open #5, British Tied #3, PGA #2
That would be 1/1 + 1/5 + 1/3 + 1/2
or 1 + .2 + .3 + .5 = 2.0
For Did not play, or withdrawals, those counted as a finish of 100
For Cuts missed, those counted as a finish of 90.
For the remaining major this year, I assigned Tiger a 4th place finish.
I have talked about how each player seemed to streak their wins at similar times, just one year off, (Tiger doing it one year earlier in age than Jack) - and also since my argument is that Tiger’s physical age due to the workout regimen, stress, and injuries was older than Jack’s physical age. Blogger refers to Tiger’s golf age being greater than Jack’s since Jack started later in life. I think if you look at each 34 year old’s face, Jack still has that babyface and Tiger is starting to look a lot like Earl.
Anyhow, so I did skew Tiger by one year vs. Jack.
What I found on the first chart was interesting, but also similar to what I had thought.
Both players had a first period of success, of about 6 years, and then dipped, and then a second period of success. Jack is in Scarlet, Tiger in Blue on the chart. Also Jack tended to have a smoother line overall, and Tiger’s line is more staggered. Also, with one exception, Tiger had no period of significant performance greater than Jacks, if you compare +- 1 year.
Also overall, Tiger does not perform as well as Jack though age 34 (Jack 35). (Note: Tiger has 14 majors at 34, Jack had 14 at 35) That is shown more clearly on in the next post with the next chart, but you can see it here too. Most of the reason for that is that this chart places a value on placement in the majors other than first. Often it is said what Jacks top 5 finish is compared to Tiger (a lot more top 5s and top 3s)- and Tiger will never break the record of Major #1 & #2s combined (Jack had 37, Tiger is at 20).