The Greats

Benicetomonty

Rikand wrote: »

I think if Monty is on the list Greebo, then Langer has to be on it too and ahead of Monty. Would argue that Woosy has to be too. 29 wins on the european tour, 1 major and world number 1 for a year and of course Ernie Els. 4 majors and 67 other wins around the world including 24 in Europe and 15 in the US. Even last month he won a champions tour event beating Monty into second place by 6 shots

1 shot. He beat him by holing from about 30ft on the last hole. Monty then had to birdie to tie, which he failed to do. Since Montgomerie was leading for most of the day, Els rather robbed him, much in the manner of how he robbed Scott at Lytham n 2012.

Theyve had a pretty good rivalry over the years but Els usually comes out on top. US Open in 1994 and 1997, the scottish at loch lomand, a few meetings in the Matchplay at Wentworth..in fact, the only time I can remember Monty out dueling Ernie head to head was Suncity in 1996 when he beat hin in a playoff.

Id still have Monty on the list of greats. Sure, it was his decision not to travel much to America and we might question it but it doesnt detract from what he did in Europe; you can only beat whoevers in front of you, and he did that constantly.

Ive heard how major winners like Harrington, Cambell and Olazabal talk about Monty and there is huge respect there. His tee to green game was, (imo and in their os!) without question one of the finest of anybody who has ever played the game, and his record in the Ryder Cup showed that he could compete with and beat the very best in the world under the most pressurised circumstances. If tournament golf was predominantly matchplay instead of strokeplay, Im pretty confident hed have won multiple times in the biggest events and reached world number 1. As it is, I remain astonished he never won a strokeplay event in America, but it isnt enough for me to doubt he was a modern great of the game.

valoren

Langer is a great for me. Two green jackets, a reliable mainstay on Ryder Cup teams, countless victories worldwide and the dominant golfer in the Senior tour over the past decade. To battle back from the yips and back injury and be so successful is a mark of greatness. For all the pre-Masters hype about Bryson tearing it up, we see a 63 year old Langer beating him by a shot. Fantastic golfer.

Pdoghue

valoren wrote: »

Langer is a great for me. Two green jackets, a reliable mainstay on Ryder Cup teams, countless victories worldwide and the dominant golfer in the Senior tour over the past decade. To battle back from the yips and back injury and be so successful is a mark of greatness. For all the pre-Masters hype about Bryson tearing it up, we see a 63 year old Langer beating him by a shot. Fantastic golfer.

Agree wholeheartedly. Always thought it was disappointing he didn't win an Open, as for someone with such success, to only have 2 majors is an underachievement. Compare him to the likes of Cabrera, Daly, Z Johnson, also with 2 majors - he's head and shoulders above them.

ThewhiteJesus

ok so here's my top five great golfers i have watched in my lifetime,

1)Tiger Woods
2)Seve
3)Greg Norman
4)Brooks Koepka
5)Phil Mickleson

tyivpc5qjx0f2b

ThewhiteJesus wrote: »

ok so here's my top five great golfers i have watched in my lifetime,

1)Tiger Woods
2)Seve
3)Greg Norman
4)Brooks Koepka
5)Phil Mickleson

You're old enough to have watched Seve & Norman but you think Koepka is the 4th best golfer of your lifetime?

You know Koepka has only 14 wins. This selection is the epitome of availability bias.

ThewhiteJesus

Joshua Wide Rip-off wrote: »

You're old enough to have watched Seve & Norman but you think Koepka is the 4th best golfer of your lifetime?

You know Koepka has only 14 wins. This selection is the epitome of availability bias.

It's my opinion and yes i'm well old enough !
I realize he is leftfield, but as a golfer i admire his ability, all round game and mindset this fella has, it leads me to believe to he will finish with 7 or 8 majors.
I did want Monty in there for sheer consistency outside the majors and i loved his swing but i just couldn't do it.
Let me guess you'd have drive for show Rory !!

tyivpc5qjx0f2b

ThewhiteJesus wrote: »

It's my opinion and yes i'm well old enough !
I realize he is leftfield, but as a golfer i admire his ability, all round game and mindset this fella has, it leads me to believe to he will finish with 7 or 8 majors.
I did want Monty in there for sheer consistency outside the majors and i loved his swing but i just couldn't do it.
Let me guess you'd have drive for show Rory !!

Don’t be such a child with the Rory line. I did have a sneaking suspicion that it was meant as some type of anti-Rory pick so I appreciate the confirmation.

If you must know though Rory obviously walks it over Koepka given their body of work to date. Almost the same age and Rory has the same amount of majors and twice the wins.

The thread is great players not potentially great players so the 7-8 majors is a moot point for me.

Over that timeline, players that immediately come to find as far more worthy of a Top 5 spot include

Vijay Singh
Ernie Els
Colin Montgomerie
Payne Stewart
Bernard Langer
Rory McIlroy
Nick Faldo

They’re just the obvious ones but there are plenty more.

Hard to even make a case for someone who had their first win 6 years ago and didn’t even get a PGA Tour card until the 2014-15 season

blue note

Joshua Wide Rip-off wrote: »

You're old enough to have watched Seve & Norman but you think Koepka is the 4th best golfer of your lifetime?

You know Koepka has only 14 wins. This selection is the epitome of availability bias.

14 wins is kind of generous to be honest. 4 of them were challenge tour and 2 the Japanese.

As I said before, for regarding someone as a great, I'll look at a few criteria and majors is by a distance the biggest. But he's so average outside of them, I just can't include him. 1 more major and I wouldn't argue. Or a half dozen pga tour wins.

tyivpc5qjx0f2b

blue note wrote: »

14 wins is kind of generous to be honest. 4 of them were challenge tour and 2 the Japanese.

As I said before, for regarding someone as a great, I'll look at a few criteria and majors is by a distance the biggest. But he's so average outside of them, I just can't include him. 1 more major and I wouldn't argue. Or a half dozen pga tour wins.

He’s been super in the past couple of years and if you want to call him great then fire ahead.

However like I said, if you’re old enough to have seen Seve & Norman, then you’re old enough to know that Koepka isnt even close to the 4th best golfer to have played since their peak.

RoadRunner

Joshua Wide Rip-off wrote: »

if you’re old enough to have seen Seve & Norman, then you’re old enough to know that Koepka isnt even close to the 4th best golfer to have played since their peak.

There's many different factors. But purely on Majors:

Brooks' 4 majors in a 2 year stretch is a period of utter major domination.

For comparison:
Seve won 5 in his whole career
Norman won 2 in his whole career spanning 4 separate decades

I'm not saying brooks is great and I'm not saying he's not, but for perspective Rory's 0 in a 7 year stretch during the "prime" of his career is really a red flag and is actually shocking when you stop and actually look through the list of consecutive majors winners on wikipedia!

tyivpc5qjx0f2b

RoadRunner wrote: »

There's many different factors. But purely on Majors:

Brooks' 4 majors in a 2 year stretch is a period of utter major domination.

For comparison:
Seve won 5 in his whole career
Norman won 2 in his whole career spanning 4 separate decades

I'm not saying brooks is great and I'm not saying he's not, but for perspective Rory's 0 in a 7 year stretch during the "prime" of his career is really a red flag and is actually shocking when you stop and actually look through the list of consecutive majors winners on wikipedia!

I'm not trying to make a case for Rory as a great player.

However, I am making the case that his career to date is far superior to Koepka especially in light of them being the same age.

If both players retired tomorrow, Rory would be ubiquitously viewed as a greater player so if making a list of "Great Players", you can't have Koepka ranked higher than him.

That said, I wouldn't have either in a Top 5 over the period described, you've overlooked half a dozen guys who have more of a claim than both so it's nothing got to do with Rory vs Koepka. It's just an obvious example.

RoadRunner

Joshua Wide Rip-off wrote: »

I'm not trying to make a case for Rory as a great player.

However, I am making the case that his career to date is far superior to Koepka especially in light of them being the same age.

On paper, it's not! I'm a Rory fan. I want to see him do well. BUT, Rory's professional career is 5 years ahead of brooks koepka.
Rory started in the void that tiger left and filled a very important spot.
Koepka a little slower to find his feet has caught up.

From a numerical point of view Koepka has had ~60% of the career duration of Rory. Regarding PGA tour earnings, Koepka is 60% 54M vs 32M. Level. Competing in 60% the number of majors that Rory has he's captured the same amount in a shorter space of time winning 15% of the majors he's entered v's Rory who's well behind, though still very impressive, with 8.5% of the majors he's entered.

However as players and competitiveness has improved and increased physicality combined with great mental strength has proved to be the model to capture wins in this new era, Rory may be showing the signs that not as as competitive against today level of competitors.

If both players were to end their careers in 10 more years, going on career total current trajectories to date Brooks Koepka takes 6 more majors Rory 3.4 more.

Change this to going up against the latest crop of players, who are physical specimens with trained psyscholgists etc who have risen. It's not rosy for Rory who statistically will take zero more versus Koepka's 6.

Rory's career timing was definitely better, following on from tiger, taking big Nike contracts etc, the golfing world leaned heavily on him as the next wonder child to fill the space. He's known around the world by simply his first name! This all goes someway to make him "great".

tyivpc5qjx0f2b

RoadRunner wrote: »

On paper, it's not! I'm a Rory fan. I want to see him do well. BUT, Rory's professional career is 5 years ahead of brooks koepka.
Rory started in the void that tiger left and filled a very important spot.
Koepka a little slower to find his feet has caught up.

From a numerical point of view Koepka has had ~60% of the career duration of Rory. Regarding PGA tour earnings, Koepka is 60% 54M vs 32M. Level. Competing in 60% the number of majors that Rory has he's captured the same amount in a shorter space of time winning 15% of the majors he's entered v's Rory who's well behind, though still very impressive, with 8.5% of the majors he's entered.

However as players and competitiveness has improved and increased physicality combined with great mental strength has proved to be the model to capture wins in this new era, Rory may be showing the signs that not as as competitive against today level of competitors.

If both players were to end their careers in 10 more years, going on career total current trajectories to date Brooks Koepka takes 6 more majors Rory 3.4 more.

Change this to going up against the latest crop of players, who are physical specimens with trained psyscholgists etc who have risen. It's not rosy for Rory who statistically will take zero more versus Koepka's 6.

Rory's career timing was definitely better, following on from tiger, taking big Nike contracts etc, the golfing world leaned heavily on him as the next wonder child to fill the space. He's known around the world by simply his first name! This all goes someway to make him "great", but he was great again weaker competition early in his career.

I think your analysis sounds very compelling on first glance but there is an abundance of oversimplification bound up in it.
You seem to think that Rorys 8.5% success rate in majors is less impressive than Brooks 15% but what about Rorys major qualification rate vs Brooks over the past 12 years.
You can’t cherry pick the start and end dates of their relative success as justification for your assumptions.

Additionally even in the event that I grant you that flawed methodology, you seem to assume that past performance is indicative of future results which is not necessarily the case.
Also you make the point that Rory is likely to achieve zero majors against the current crop while Brooks captures 6.
When did this “current crop” start exactly and what makes you assume that Brooks who has suffered quite a number of injuries will continue on this trajectory?
One may have said the same about Speith who is 3 years younger but his trajectory does not seem to have held.

Furthermore I have already address the point that the thread is “Great Players” and not “Potentially Great Players”. Rory has achieved more in his career to date than Brooks.
Brooks may eventually achieve more but irrespective of the fact that they’re the same age, if they were both to retire today, Rory has had a more successful ie Greater career than Brooks ergo he is a Greater player.

Their career trajectory irrespective of your methodology is not relevant to the discussion.

monkeybutter

RoadRunner wrote: »

On paper, it's not! I'm a Rory fan. I want to see him do well. BUT, Rory's professional career is 5 years ahead of brooks koepka.
Rory started in the void that tiger left and filled a very important spot.
Koepka a little slower to find his feet has caught up.

From a numerical point of view Koepka has had ~60% of the career duration of Rory. Regarding PGA tour earnings, Koepka is 60% 54M vs 32M. Level. Competing in 60% the number of majors that Rory has he's captured the same amount in a shorter space of time winning 15% of the majors he's entered v's Rory who's well behind, though still very impressive, with 8.5% of the majors he's entered.

However as players and competitiveness has improved and increased physicality combined with great mental strength has proved to be the model to capture wins in this new era, Rory may be showing the signs that not as as competitive against today level of competitors.

If both players were to end their careers in 10 more years, going on career total current trajectories to date Brooks Koepka takes 6 more majors Rory 3.4 more.

Change this to going up against the latest crop of players, who are physical specimens with trained psyscholgists etc who have risen. It's not rosy for Rory who statistically will take zero more versus Koepka's 6.

Rory's career timing was definitely better, following on from tiger, taking big Nike contracts etc, the golfing world leaned heavily on him as the next wonder child to fill the space. He's known around the world by simply his first name! This all goes someway to make him "great", but he was great again weaker competition early in his career.

they are the same age, so you can hardly say Koepka is 5 years behind Rory just because it took him 5 more years to turn pro, it just shows how good Rory has been from a young age



you can only look back at what they have done so far not what they might do


if what they have done so far is great they are great


if he had won 5 over the first years and none since then would he now not be great


Phil Mick was in his 30s before he won one, does that means hes not a great

OEP

Not to derail this thread too much as it is about the greats, but the Rory Koepka argument brings up this point.

It seems now, post Tiger, players go on a hot streak particularly with majors. Rory had 4 in 3 years, then Spieth had his 3, then Koepka 4 - is it DJ's turn now? And while I think Koepka will probably win more, it won't be at the rate he won his first 4.

The Tetrarch

Jack Nicklaus got a small mention in the opening post.

This is a list of players who had top 10 finishes in all four majors in a season.
Jack Nicklaus (5): 1971; 1973; 1974; 1975; 1977
Tom Watson (3): 1975; 1977; 1982
Arnol Palmer (2): 1960; 1966
Gary Player (2): 1963; 1974
Tiger Woods (2): 2000; 2005

In case you are wondering why Jack Nicklaus flopped in 1972:
US Masters 1st; US Open 1st; Open Championship 2nd; USPGA 13th (6 shots behind)

Jack's other flop in 1976:
3rd; 11th; 2nd; 4th

In the 28 majors in the 7 years from 1971 to 1977, Jack finished out of the top 10 twice, 13th and 11th.
Add the last two majors of 1970 (1st; 6th) and the first three in 1978 (7th; 6th; 1st) and that was 31 top 10s in majors out of 33.

Mysterypunter

The Tetrarch wrote: »

Jack Nicklaus got a small mention in the opening post.

This is a list of players who had top 10 finishes in all four majors in a season.
Jack Nicklaus (5): 1971; 1973; 1974; 1975; 1977
Tom Watson (3): 1975; 1977; 1982
Arnol Palmer (2): 1960; 1966
Gary Player (2): 1963; 1974
Tiger Woods (2): 2000; 2005

In case you are wondering why Jack Nicklaus flopped in 1972:
US Masters 1st; US Open 1st; Open Championship 2nd; USPGA 13th (6 shots behind)

Jack's other flop in 1976:
3rd; 11th; 2nd; 4th

In the 28 majors in the 7 years from 1971 to 1977, Jack finished out of the top 10 twice, 13th and 11th.
Add the last two majors of 1970 (1st; 6th) and the first three in 1978 (7th; 6th; 1st) and that was 31 top 10s in majors out of 33.

For all the bull**** spouted, Nicklaus is a clear winner, he also won the masters at age 46, shooting 30 on the back 9. Then he retired and won 3 Oscars

blue note

OEP wrote: »

Not to derail this thread too much as it is about the greats, but the Rory Koepka argument brings up this point.

It seems now, post Tiger, players go on a hot streak particularly with majors. Rory had 4 in 3 years, then Spieth had his 3, then Koepka 4 - is it DJ's turn now? And while I think Koepka will probably win more, it won't be at the rate he won his first 4.

This is my perception too of how golfers are viewed nowadays. Every time there are 3 guys who look way ahead of the rest, we talk about them like they're going to dominate for the next decade.

After Tigers injury there was a bit of a lull for a few years. Rory came to the top and people seemed to assume his performance level would never drop, so maybe people would occasionally get close to him, but basically he'll be on and off world number 1 until his mid 30s. I remember around this time being told that Tiger never had to deal with the quality of players that Rory did at that time. Then Tiger had a couple of years injury free and shot out well ahead in the world rankings. Injury took over again and we saw the emergence of Speith, Day, the start of the Dustin we see now. Around this time I remember hearing that Rory never had to contend with this level of competitor when he was dominant.

Speith has fallen way back as has Day. Rory had another dominant year, in the midst of all these golfers the likes of which we've never witnessed before, just like the previous golfers the likes of which we've never witnessed before.

And then came along Brooks, Justin Thomas and John Rahm to add to the pack. Over the years you could throw in Adam Scott and Justin Rose as well as a few others if you like.

Basically, we're incredible for kneejerk reactions. Harrington is very interesting when he talks about players peaking and it generally lasting for about 18 months. I think he's spot on. He got three majors out of it. Rory's were won in a quick burst, same for Speith and Brooks. Anyone who thinks they're going to go on winning like that is incredibly naive. I think it's likely that each of them will win more, but not definite. Rory had another peak year last year and will regret not picking up a major in it. But he's young enough and talented enough that he'll probably have more seasons where he peaks like that.

RoadRunner

Joshua Wide Rip-off wrote: »

what about Rorys major qualification rate vs Brooks over the past 12 years.

But B.K's first major was 8 years ago, first cut made 7 years ago then utter domination since!

Joshua Wide Rip-off wrote: »

You can’t cherry pick the start and end dates of their relative success as justification for your assumptions.

Of course you can! That's the exact thing that you did right up there ^ re: cherry picking relative start and end dates of Rory's major qualifications "over the past 12 years" :pac:

Joshua Wide Rip-off wrote: »

Their career trajectory irrespective of your methodology is not relevant to the discussion.

Sandwiched between Rory's wins were the following players:

adam scott
martin kaymer
jason duffner
web simpson
bubba watson
darren clarke
keegan bradley
Charl Schwartzel
ernie ells
phil mickleson

Phil and and Ernie possible greats in some people's minds even if at the very end of their career and more than twice Rory's age. As Rory's competition through his winning patch, though decent players, none of them have been able to push on and make a dent in majors since the early noughties - nearly a decade ago.

Entire golfing careers have risen and fallen since then. Speith came, utterly dominated, and, well.. The phenomenon that is JT - present in every tournament as is Xander Schauffele. Henrik Stenson versus Phil, incredible golf. The year of Francesco Molinari and ryder cup domination. Morikawa with an iron game to die for and course savviness sharper than Rory's. 20 other guys who are knocking on the major door. DJ coming of age. Bryson, doing bryson-ey stuff. An all-time legend climbing out of out from his grave, getting back surgery for the sake of it, and roaring again - a full 8 shots clear of an AWOL Rory.

In reality, despite how it sounds -I'm still saying this as a Rory fan but if you could go back in time 5 years & had one minute to give Rory one piece of advice. The only advice you could realistically give to him would be just to not play a major without first putting big money each way on Koepka on *every* *single* *occasion*, because you're just not going to be able compete against him. It would have been the most incredible advice and the last 15 majors, since then Rory would have been paid out on 12 separate occasions with 4 wins, 2 runner ups, 3 or 4 more inside the top 6 probably.. I'm losing count of the rest. Rory could have become a rich man, despite koepka's debilitating injuries that you've already mentioned

tyivpc5qjx0f2b

RoadRunner wrote: »

But B.K's first major was 8 years ago, first cut made 7 years ago then utter domination since!

I think utter dominance is very hyperbolic. Utter domination is 8 "real" pro wins in 7-8 years. I understand that majors are and should be more heavily weighted but his results over the timeline you suggested is hardly “utter dominance”?
Those wins on the challenge tour must really be indicative of domination.

RoadRunner wrote: »

Of course you can! That's the exact thing that you did right up there ^ re: cherry picking relative start and end dates of Rory's major qualifications "over the past 12 years" :pac:

LOL I made that point to show how flawed your argument is, totality of career is being considered, not cherry picked timelines. I thought that was obvious.

RoadRunner wrote: »

Sandwiched between Rory's wins were the following players:

adam scott
martin kaymer
jason duffner
web simpson
bubba watson
darren clarke
keegan bradley
Charl Schwartzel
ernie ells
phil mickleson

Phil and and Ernie possible greats in some people's minds even if at the very end of their career and more than twice Rory's age. As Rory's competition through his winning patch, though decent players, none of them have been able to push on and make a dent in majors since the early noughties - nearly a decade ago.

Entire golfing careers have risen and fallen since then. Speith came, utterly dominated, and, well.. The phenomenon that is JT - present in every tournament as is Xander Schauffele. Henrik Stenson versus Phil, incredible golf. The year of Francesco Molinari and ryder cup domination. Morikawa with an iron game to die for and course savviness sharper than Rory's. 20 other guys who are knocking on the major door. DJ coming of age. Bryson, doing bryson-ey stuff. An all-time legend climbing out of out from his grave, getting back surgery for the sake of it, and roaring again - a full 8 shots clear of an AWOL Rory.

In reality, despite how it sounds -I'm still saying this as a Rory fan but if you could go back in time 5 years & had one minute to give Rory one piece of advice. The only advice you could realistically give to him would be just to not play a major without first putting big money each way on Koepka on *every* *single* *occasion*, because you're just not going to be able compete against him. Eyebrow-raising-ly in the last 15 majors, since then Rory would have been paid out on 12 separate occasions with 4 wins, 2 runner ups, 3 or 4 more inside the top 6 probably.. I'm losing count of the rest. Point is, the advice would have been sound and Rory could have become a rich man (despite koepka's debilitating injuries that you've already mentioned )

That's all great but again none of it really relevant to the discussion.

Rory has had a greater career to date than Koepka, flawed mathematical equivocation and augmented timelines doesn't change that.

As previously said, neither would make my Top 5 over a similar period but Rory obviously ranks higher.

I think you have raised a lot of very superfluous points that aren’t particularly relevant.

The only relevant question is

“If neither ever played again, who would be viewed as the greatest of the two?”

Rory seems the obvious choice.

RoadRunner

Joshua Wide Rip-off wrote: »

I think utter dominance is very hyperbolic. Utter domination is 8 "real" pro wins in 7-8 years. I understand that majors are and should be more heavily weighted but his results over the timeline you suggested is hardly “utter dominance”?
Those wins on the challenge tour must really be indicative of domination.




LOL I made that point to show how flawed your argument is, totality of career is being considered, not cherry picked timelines. I thought that was obvious.




That's all great but again none of it really relevant to the discussion.

Rory has had a greater career to date than Koepka, flawed mathematical equivocation and augmented timelines doesn't change that.

As previously said, neither would make my Top 5 over a similar period but Rory obviously ranks higher.

I think you have raised a lot of very superfluous points that aren’t particularly relevant.

The only relevant question is

“If neither ever played again, who would be viewed as the greatest of the two?”

Rory seems the obvious choice.

:rolleyes: Obviously the term "Great" is indeterminate and open to interpretation. Almost the whole point of this thread is trying to scratch the surface and try establish weighting as to the definition of "Great" that fellow golfers can agree on (or just simply argue over).

I'm not prepared to call either Rory or B.K. Great (yet) and we don't disagree there. You said:

"The only relevant question is: “If neither ever played again, who would be viewed as the greatest of the two?” Rory seems the obvious choice."

Are you basing that mostly on total career winnings?
If so Jim Furyk is easily "Greater" then both Rory and Jack... combined!

Are you basing it on total career wins?
If so Monty is "Greater" then Rory. What about each of Lloyd Mangrum, Horton Smith, Paul Runyan and Leo Diegel being greater than 9 time major winner and grand slam Player? (I never heard of them either but they've loads of historic wins!)

Are you basing it on who'd win in a head-to-head match?
If so Alexander Björk (swedish golfer and random pick of 264th currently in the world) would surely handily beat Old Tom Morris - 4 time major winner from the 1800's.

How are you coming to that conclusion and have you considered the other factors?

Who are you asking the question to? As an irish man in an irish forum asking other irish golfers most of whom would self identify as Irishman Rory fans (and none of that discussion here please :rolleyes:). Ask the same question to Brooks' mother you'll get a different answer based on a different set of variables used to define great. She would probably say her son is more great. If she can back that up with her reasoning, perhaps something like her son has a proven track record of regularly winning the biggest competitions against players that Rory hasn't been able to compete with in most of a decade. (Enter you [screaming]:BUT IF NEITHER EVER PLAYED AGAIN WHO WOULD BE THe.. ahh)

While you are focussed on the Who this thread and I suppose my interest in it is more about the How.

Though other factors play a part such as career earnings, number of regular tour wins, number of majors.. the points I've made previously, which you discount as being irrelevant or hyperbole, were made to point out that in my view the primary indicator of what defines golfers as being "great" is their performance relevant to their competitors of their day.

tyivpc5qjx0f2b

RoadRunner wrote: »

:rolleyes: Obviously the term "Great" is indeterminate and open to interpretation. Almost the whole point of this thread is trying to scratch the surface and try establish weighting as to the definition of "Great" that fellow golfers can agree on (or just simply argue over).

I'm not prepared to call either Rory or B.K. Great (yet) and we don't disagree there. You said:

"The only relevant question is: “If neither ever played again, who would be viewed as the greatest of the two?” Rory seems the obvious choice."

Are you basing that mostly on total career winnings?
If so Jim Furyk is easily "Greater" then both Rory and Jack... combined!

Are you basing it on total career wins?
If so Monty is "Greater" then Rory. What about each of Lloyd Mangrum, Horton Smith, Paul Runyan and Leo Diegel being greater than 9 time major winner and grand slam Player? (I never heard of them either but they've loads of historic wins!)

Are you basing it on who'd win in a head-to-head match?
If so Alexander Björk (swedish golfer and random pick of 264th currently in the world) would surely handily beat Old Tom Morris - 4 time major winner from the 1800's.

How are you coming to that conclusion and have you considered the other factors?

Who are you asking the question to? As an irish man in an irish forum asking other irish golfers most of whom would self identify as Irishman Rory fans (and none of that discussion here please :rolleyes:). Ask the same question to Brooks' mother you'll get a different answer based on a different set of variables used to define great. She would probably say her son is more great. If she can back that up with her reasoning, perhaps something like her son has a proven track record of regularly winning the biggest competitions against players that Rory hasn't been able to compete with in most of a decade. (Enter you [screaming]:BUT IF NEITHER EVER PLAYED AGAIN WHO WOULD BE THe.. ahh)

While you are focussed on the Who this thread and I suppose my interest in it is more about the How.

Though other factors play a part such as career earnings, number of regular tour wins, number of majors.. the points I've made previously, which you discount as being irrelevant or hyperbole, were made to point out that in my view the primary indicator of what defines golfers as being "great" is their performance relevant to their competitors of their day.

I find your posting style quite hard to read if I'm honest so I'll be leaving this as my final reply.

To answer your question in relation to what I'm basing my opinion on, earnings do not particularly matter in my assessment it's largely wins.

Rory has the same number of majors and more professional wins than Brooks.
That is likely viewed as the more universally accepted means of ranking golfers.
In light of Rory having substantially more, I feel little ambiguity exists. This is even more true given they're competing alongside one another so we're not comparing across decades, it's clearcut.

If it was closer then fair enough but Rory has far more and Rory getting them before Koepka "arrived" is not really relevant given they're approximately the same age.

Obviously your point regarding Furyk is moot given the length of time he has played for, the money involved in the sport changing over time and the lack of control for inflation adjusted winnings so won't get bogged down in that.

I don't care about Irishness, Koepkas mother etc(you can see why I find the style hard to read).

You seem to think Rory hasnt been able to compete in "most of the decade" which is obviously a ridiculous point given Koepka wasn't even on the PGA tour for half of this decade. Rory has effectively been a mainstay at the top for the whole decade. Koepka has competed in the main tournaments for a shorter period of time. That's just such a terrible point.

Your final point about Rory's competition is again complete conjecture. You alluded to Morikawas ball striking and others but again you show nothing remotely tangible in terms of Koepkas wins coming against stronger fields, it's simply your subjective opinion.

The case for Rory is more objective ie more wins, more money earned. The case for Koepka is more based upon trajectory which may result him being a greater player but he's not been a greater player to date which as previously said -repeatedly- is the point of the discussion.

Golf4774 wrote: »

I'm not trying to make a case for Rory as a great player.

However, I am making the case that his career to date is far superior to Koepka especially in light of them being the same age.

RoadRunner wrote: »

On paper, it's not!

You should try recalling your original point.

It is in fact "On Paper"-above anywhere else- where McIlorys superiority is evident.

All the other potential reasons you are attempting to rationalise are those which are not on paper.

That was the original point you disagreed with and that is where you are fundamentally incorrect.