Tiger Woods (official 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]

Originally Posted by 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....

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]

Originally Posted by zincfinger

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....

[BuckeyeMac]

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]

Originally Posted by Wingate1217

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]

Originally Posted by mstevmac

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]

Originally Posted by OH10

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.