Comments on: Greatest Athlete Ever

By: Peter

Peter — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:20:18 +0000

John Daly, interestingly, looks an awful lot like Babe Ruth, who is the greatest athlete other than Tiger Woods.

My argument is not necessarily that golf is the ultimate sporting event. Certainly other sports are more challenging in terms of physical endurance and reaction. My argument is that the strength, precision, and mental challenges of golf are so severe that when someone dominates the way Tiger does, we’d have to say that he’s at least among the greatest athletes ever.

By: noah

noah — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:46:29 +0000

World class chess players are all atheletes. If they weren’t in great condition, they’d break down under the strain.

I simply can’t see golf as the “ultimate sporting event.” I’ll grant you it’s difficult, and that it takes a tremendous amount of concentration and consistancy, but it doesn’t have to involve even breaking a sweat. The ultimate athletic game, which I’m not claiming to know exactly what that is, has to have elements of strength, endurance, concentration and reaction. If it doesn’t have all of them, it can’t be the “ultimate.”

If Jon Daly can win a tournament, golfer are not the ultimate athletes playing the ultimate game.

By: Peter

Peter — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:22:15 +0000

See, now you’re just being silly. It’s physical AND mental, and I never claimed otherwise. Golf is so difficult because it presents a tremendous physical challenge as well as a tremendous mental challenge, the combination of which is unmatched by any other game.

By: noah

noah — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:28:11 +0000

Well, if what we really care about is the mental side of sports, I nominate Bobby Fisher as one of the most dominant atheletes of all time. He could concentrate with anybody, even the beloved Tiger Woods.

By: Peter

Peter — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 02:54:59 +0000

To be fair, I said “Greatest Athlete” not “Most Athletic Athlete.” I’ll grant points for endurance, strength, reaction, etc. and I still think Tiger the greatest athlete. Hitting a golf ball is one of the hardest things to do in any sport. Hitting a baseball and playing tennis are the only things I’d put on the same level. The precision required to do it well is so uncommon that it outweighs the fact that other sports need more raw strength, speed, etc. Plus, the mental component of golf is more intense than any other sport, and Tiger has mastered it completely. Look at his record with the 54-hole lead, and look at the average scores of his playing partners.

I think it’s either Tiger or Babe Ruth, and I’d put Tiger on top.

By: Noah

Noah — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 01:23:10 +0000

I’d argue with that. There is a certain amount of finese involved in golf, no doubt, but there has to be points given for endourance, strength, and high speed eye-hand reaction.

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:55:28 +0000

The physical skill required to do what Tiger does is way beyond basketball or wrestling. The closest parallel is probably Babe Ruth, but I’d argue that Tiger is even more dominant than Ruth was at this point.

By: Noah

Noah — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 01:09:26 +0000

Yeah, he dominates his sport like nobody’s business, but he’s still a golfer.

Woohoo.

So they guy played through a two-month old knee surgery. He’s still a golfer.

He’s a great golfer. A golfer. I’m not saying golf is easy, but I can’t put him on the same pedistal as Michael Jordan or Alexander Karelin.