On Sunday, Tiger Woods won his 7th straight PGA tournament. He is now 4 wins away from tying Byron Nelson's record of 11 straight tour wins. On the final day of the tourny Tiger came back from 2 stroke deficit to win by 2 strokes.
Last year Tiger had a great year,winning2 majors and 6 straight wins ending the season all during or after the death of his father Earl. If a depressed Tiger could do that,than what could an energized Tiger do? As he has proved time and time again the possibilities are endless.
Back to Byron Nelson's record,I don't think it even is the record. The caliber and depth of the PGA is much better than when Nelson was playing. If Tiger was playing back then, he would win much more then 11 straight. Even if Tiger beats the record, both golfers were great athletes.
7 comments:
I agree that todays players are superior to those in Byron Nelson's era but golf is nothing if not a game of statistics. 11 PGA tournament wins in a row stands as one of the last great records in any sport. It would be a quite an achievement if Tiger were able to match or surpass that number.
Nelson dominated on a tour completely decimated by the participation of most of the best golfers in World War II. It was only a rare blood disorder the allowed him to avoid service. Tiger, however, is dominant in the strongest era of golf. His record 142 consecutive cuts made already outshines Nelson's 113. Tiger rules!
A little Nelson respect please. Nelson did miss WW2 because of a blood disorder, his blood clotted 4 times slower then normal, making it a little difficult to handle being wounded.
Re: Consecutive cuts: "Making the cut" in the PGA means getting a paycheque. In Nelson's era, only the top 20 golfers we're paid. Therefore, Nelson's "113 consecutive cuts made" are representative of his unequaled 113 consecutive top 20 tournament finishes. Woods has only managed 21 consecutive top 20 finishes in his career, albeit in a more internationally competitive field.
Well its no surprise that Nelson retired at the tender age of 34 once all the war veterans were back stateside. All of a sudden winning golf tournaments got a lot tougher!
Lord Nelson also went 65 straight tournaments finishing in the top 10. He also played with hickory shafts, whose characteristics required a different swing than what’s seen today with a lot of hands and a little movement below the waist. When he became a pro in 1932, he took up the new-fangled steel shafts that Bobby Jones had invented and immediately adopted the swing that remains the standard. He never found it necessary to practice and never tinkered with that flawless swing. He could take two weeks or two months off, then take a club to the first tee and hit a perfect drive.
The greatest testament is that when the U.S. Golf Association built a robot to put a perfect swing on a ball for its club- and ball-testing programs, it named it “Iron Byron.”
Wheels...I can't believe you're taking shots at Byron Nelson...Otherwise known as "Lord" Byron....One of the most gracious and revered sports icons who ever lived. If you want to talk about tainted wartime sports records then set your sights on Joe DiMaggio' 56 game hitting streak in 1941. There was no pitching. Nelson still had to deal with the golf courses and the complexities of the game itself.
Hey, what's with dumping all over Joltin' Joe?? What's next - Moe Norman didn't have the right wardrobe?
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