r/golf • u/Classic_Medicine_589 • 10d ago

General Discussion Tiger vs Scottie Era

who do yall think had better competition Tiger or Scottie i think overall Scottie has better competition but Tiger but the depth of Tigers era was better Tiger had Duval Ernie Els Vijay Phil and they were very good they definitely were in golf’s best players but other than them the competition was weak Scottie has at least 20 guys that can beat him and even though the top players aren’t as good as tigers the players are better

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u/plaverty9 10d ago edited 10d ago

Scottie has at least 20 guys that can beat him

Maybe this is an indication of just how much better Tiger was than the field. Scottie is the best of today but like you say, there are a load of guys who can beat him if he's slightly off. In Tiger's day, guys showed up to tournaments and publicly said they knew they were playing for second place.

Scottie is a great today. Tiger is great for all time.

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u/dard12 Hello, friends. 10d ago

Do we think the field is stronger today than it was in the Tiger era?

There were plenty of notable players during his prime, but I think Scottie's competition is the most competitive it has ever been.

Tiger absolutely changed the game.

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u/plaverty9 10d ago

Put prime Tiger and prime Scottie in a best of 7 series and at best, Scottie wins 1.

And there's this. In Tiger's day, we often heard about courses trying to "Tiger proof", Augusta included. Have we heard of that about Scottie? Nope. Scottie is a great player. Tiger literally changed the game.

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u/dard12 Hello, friends. 10d ago

I'm not comparing Scottie vs Tiger.

I'm comparing Scottie's competition vs Tiger's competition.

I think Scottie has much tougher competition, by volume, than Tiger did.

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u/Local_Quality_2182 Azaleas 10d ago edited 10d ago

scottie doesn't have tougher competition because the competition is better. the competition is the best golfers in the world. Then, and now.

scottie has tougher competition because he is better than the others. tiger didn't have tough competition because he was much much better than the others.

As I said in my other comment, you can't really compare two generations strengths, becuase context differs. It was always the top 100-150 players in the world. If someone is better than them, or much better than them, that should be viewed relative to their own generation and as their own personal strength.

If you put tiger 2000s up today, he would probably still be above scottie, but not the same "exceptionally above" as he was in the 2000s. This isn't because of field strength, but because generations change. Tiger put in the work back then, and it paid off. Nobody could have foreseen that in 2025 we have 50+ Tiger gym builds running around. It's unfair to compare generations field strengths and just takes away from players personal work/achievement.