Saturday, August 26, 2006

Greatest golf seasons ever

Although Tiger Woods still has a ways to go to catch Jack Nicklaus' career records, he has already proven he is the greatest golfer ever at his peak. He dominates the list of greatest single seasons in major championship history, according to my scoring system, which I'll explain below.

Rank, Player, Year, Points
1. Tiger Woods, 2000, 91.00
2. Ben Hogan, 1953, 76.00
3. Bobby Jones, 1930, 65.00
4. Tiger Woods, 2005, 60.50
5. Jack Nicklaus, 1980, 56.50
5. Arnold Palmer, 1962, 56.50
7. Arnold Palmer, 1960, 55.50
8. Jack Nicklaus, 1972, 55.00
8. Tiger Woods, 2002, 55.00
10. Ben Hogan, 1948, 54.50
10. Sam Snead, 1949, 54.50
12. Tiger Woods, 2006, 53.50
12. Jack Nicklaus, 1975, 53.50
13. Nick Faldo, 1990, 53.00
14. Gary Player, 1974, 52.50
15. Jack Nicklaus, 1963, 51.00
16. Bobby Jones, 1926, 50.00
17. Gene Sarazen, 1932, 50.00
18. Tom Watson, 1977, 49.50
19. Tom Watson, 1982, 49.25
20. Jack Nicklaus, 1966, 49.00
21. Walter Hagen, 1924, 49.00
22. Nick Price, 1994, 47.50
23. Jack Nicklaus, 1971, 45.50

How my scoring works, let's look at Tiger's 2006 major championship season.

* This year, he finished in a five-way tie for third at the Masters. On a scale of 20 for first, 9 for second, 8 for third, 7 for fourth, etc., he earned six points for the t-3.
* He missed the cut at the U.S. Open so, of course, he earned 0.
* He won the British Open by two strokes so he earned 20 points plus 2 bonus points for margin of victory. That put him up to 28 for the year.
* At the PGA, he won by five shots to score 25 (20+5 bonus points), plus a 0.5 bonus point for tying the record for lowest under par total in PGA history -- a record he already held. So for the PGA, he earned 25.5 points, giving him a total of 53.5 points for the year.

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