Is Tiger The Most Intimidating, Imposing and Frightening Figure Ever in Sports?

[4BiddenKnight]

Re: Is Tiger The Most Intimidating, Imposing and Frightening Figure Ever in Sports?

Physical intimidation is almost the same as mental intimidation. You're scared to death about some big bully beating the living crap out of you. When you're scared about getting hurt, it's your head and a part of your brain (amygala or however you call that part) that causes you to scare yourself to death about that bully.

Tim Duncan maybe scared of Shaq physically hurting him when he's defending him. This is, for say, physical intimidation. But really, Tim Duncan mentally gets scared of Shaq and has thoughts swirling around his head about how much Shaq's gonna physically hurt him when he's defending.

If you're thinking about how you fear getting hurt, it's still intimidation coming from your head. This being said, physical and mental intimidation are the same as they're both connected. If that's being said, Tiger is, and possibly, one of the most intimidating and imposing athletes there are.

[pietasterp]

Re: Is Tiger The Most Intimidating, Imposing and Frightening Figure Ever in Sports?

I understand what you're saying about only having one attempt (one swing) with no room for error, but the ball is lying there on a tee for you. It's not coming at you 95 MPH with movement. You get three strikes in baseball because it's that much harder to hit a baseball than it is to hit a golf ball. I'm not saying it's easy to hit a golf ball, but it's definitely easier than hitting a baseball, IMO.

I think some of the points you have forwarded make some sense, but ultimately, I think this is what belies the essence of your opinions. I can only guess that you have never played golf, and if you have, never seriously enough to get into it as a sport (or serious game, whatever you prefer). This argument that "the ball is just lying there", hence it should be easy to sock the crap out of it, is the CLASSIC non-golfer argument. It just shows that you can't know how difficult something is until you really try it. Put it this way - if it's so much easier to do than hitting a baseball, than why isn't Barry Bonds a scratch golfer? Or why aren't major league baseball players excellent golfers, automatically? Shouldn't the top hitters in baseball be able to walk on to the PGA tour with a minimum of practice? It's because anybody in any other sport that plays golf will tell you that golf is by far the hardest thing in the world to do really well. Jordan has said it, Barkley has said it, many MLB players have attested to that fact, hockey players (Brett Hull, Brendan Shanahan among others)...

Now, whether or not you want to give me golfing well is the single hardest thing to do, I seriously doubt you'd find much debate if you classified it as one of the top 3-4 things to do in all of sport. Even shooting a relatively crappy score - say, an 85 - is HARD as HELL. The game just takes too damn much focus, body control, and dexterity to ever do consistently well given the razor-thin margin of error, and the amazingly large-scale results of infinitessimally small errors. It's what Chaos theorists refer to as "sensitive dependence on initial conditions", i.e. 0.00001 mm off-center or off-plane in your swing may yield a 30% or greater deviation from your desired target.

Whether or not Tiger is intimidating his opponents is one thing, but without really playing a lot of golf, I just don't think you can appreciate how amazing pro golfers are.

[ehh]

Re: Is Tiger The Most Intimidating, Imposing and Frightening Figure Ever in Sports?

I think some of the points you have forwarded make some sense, but ultimately, I think this is what belies the essence of your opinions. I can only guess that you have never played golf, and if you have, never seriously enough to get into it as a sport (or serious game, whatever you prefer). This argument that "the ball is just lying there", hence it should be easy to sock the crap out of it, is the CLASSIC non-golfer argument. It just shows that you can't know how difficult something is until you really try it. Put it this way - if it's so much easier to do than hitting a baseball, than why isn't Barry Bonds a scratch golfer? Or why aren't major league baseball players excellent golfers, automatically? Shouldn't the top hitters in baseball be able to walk on to the PGA tour with a minimum of practice? It's because anybody in any other sport that plays golf will tell you that golf is by far the hardest thing in the world to do really well. Jordan has said it, Barkley has said it, many MLB players have attested to that fact, hockey players (Brett Hull, Brendan Shanahan among others)...

If you read the last sentence of my post, I said that hitting a golf ball is hard. But it is not as hard as hitting a baseball. I'm also not saying pro golfers aren't amazing at what they do! Trust me, I've been to PGA events before and see them live. I don't know why you're putting these words into my mouth.

Also, I've played golf for the last 7 years, about three times per summer. I have a crappy back as I mentioned earlier so I can't play too often. So it's not a ton of golf, but I do get out on the course a few times a year. I obviously suck, I'm happy if my score is below triple digits. However, I can hit the ball with my drivers on the fairway about 7 outta 10 times at a cap of about 200 yards. I can't putt to save my life. Every now and then I'll get a par and be happy as a pig in ****. I have two birdies in 7 years.

Now, if I go into a high-level batting cage and try and hit a 96 MPH fastball, I'll be happy if a I get a piece of 2 outta of 10. And by piece, I mean barely fouling off a pitch.

Sure, Barkley said it was the hardest game, hockey players said it was the hardest game, etc. Good for them.

None of them ever dug in against Pedro Martinez (or any other HOF pitcher) when he was in his prime, so their opinion holds absolutely no weight. They have nothing to relate it to. How are they going to say playing golf is harder than hitting against Pedro when they've never done it?

Jordan said golf is the hardest game, yet he was struggling to stay above the Mendoza line in AA ball.

Why would you assume that I would think baseball players would be good golfers with "little to no practice"? I have no idea where you got that from. Baseball and golf have completely different mechanics, in fact the only similarity is the "swing" in both. By your logic then, since golf is harder, golfers should just stroll into the majors had hit .320. I guarentee there isn't a single professional golfer on this planet that could get a hit off Johan Santana right now.

Plus, these athletes you listed (who said golf is the hardest thing to do) are used to playing in sports where their natural physical strengths can give them a huge advantage (size, speed, quickness, leaping ability, strength, body control) but those don't translate to golf equally. Guys like Jordan and Barkely are used to going on somewhat controlled fits of rage to help destroy the competition in basketball and win games - you can't do that in golf. You have to keep you're cool. I'm not saying golfers don't get fired up, but you can't play on pure emotion and adreneline in golf like you can in basketball or football. It's a completely foreign concept for them, obviously they're going to suck at it and think it's so hard because it's unlike anything they've done before. Which hits the tip of the iceberg as to why I believe golf is a game and not a sport.

I think another reason why other athletes (and baseball players since I haven't addressed them yet) think golf is so hard is because it by far requires the most patience of any game/sport/competitive event on this planet. It's funny, even if you look at a "patient hitter" in baseball, it's nothing compared to the frustrations you go through in golf. Golf can break your will faster than anything else IMO, nothing tries your patience like it. Again, that's something these athletes cannot relate to because there is nothing even close to it in their sport.

I think thats why there are guys like Brian Jordan (football/baseball), Tony Clark and Kenny Lofton (baseball/basketball), Tony Gonzales (football/basketball) who are successful at the most "athletic" sports. Golf is a completely different animal than what they're used to.

I wish a poll could be taken of professional golfers, asking them whether it was harder to hit a golf ball or hit off a major league pitcher. Obviously they'll say hitting a baseball because it's completely different to what they do, something they're not accustomed to and not good at.

[ehh]

Re: Is Tiger The Most Intimidating, Imposing and Frightening Figure Ever in Sports?

Also, another thing to add that slipped my mind.

The outside influence in baseball is what makes it so difficult. In my prior post from yesterday that you quoted about "the ball lying on a tee" I was refering to this.

In golf...

You measure the distance from your ball the hole and select your club. Your ball is there on the fairway, let's say 150 yards from the pin. With the correct club in hand, you set your feet, your grip. You **** back your swing, keep your bottom arm straight, so and so forth, let your swing go with a follow through - your perfect mechanical swing. The result, if you did everything mechinically correct, will be exactly what you wanted it to be.

In baseball...

You're at the plate against Pedro Martinez with a 3-2 count. You set your feet, eye the pitcher, **** your bat. Here comes the pitch. You stride perfectly, keep you're hands back, then shift your weight and start your swing as the 97 MPH fastball whizzes in at you. You put an absolutely perfect mechanical swing on the ball, except the only problem is the pitch is actually a 73 MPH curveball that just fell off the table and you missed by 8 inches.

In golf, if you do everything perfectly from a mechanical aspect you will get the results you want. If you don't, you'll slice the ball, etc.

In baseball, if you do everything perfectly from a mechanical apsect at the plate you aren't guarenteed a damn thing because of the outside influence of the pitch.

[ComfortablyLomb]

Re: Is Tiger The Most Intimidating, Imposing and Frightening Figure Ever in Sports?

This explains everything. You think only physical sports can be intimidating, so there's the crux of our difference right there. No sense arguing now, especially since you inanely believe that golf isn't a sport.

I could ask you to define the difference between a game and sport for comedy's sake, but that's an entire can of worms that doesn't need to be opened in this thread.

Take care,
PK

Only half of baseball is a sport then since pitchers are basically just doing the same type of thing as golfers. Hitting a golf ball is pretty comparable to throwing a pitch in terms of what you're doing. You set up, you try to direct a ball to a certain location with certain spin, movement, and power. Then you hope it works out. I guess you could rule out designated hitters as athletes as well since they're just swinging a bat and a stupid little ball too and usually can't run.

[ComfortablyLomb]

Re: Is Tiger The Most Intimidating, Imposing and Frightening Figure Ever in Sports?

Also, another thing to add that slipped my mind.

The outside influence in baseball is what makes it so difficult. In my prior post from yesterday that you quoted about "the ball lying on a tee" I was refering to this.

In golf...

You measure the distance from your ball the hole and select your club. Your ball is there on the fairway, let's say 150 yards from the pin. With the correct club in hand, you set your feet, your grip. You **** back your swing, keep your bottom arm straight, so and so forth, let your swing go with a follow through - your perfect mechanical swing. The result, if you did everything mechinically correct, will be exactly what you wanted it to be.

In baseball...

You're at the plate against Pedro Martinez with a 3-2 count. You set your feet, eye the pitcher, **** your bat. Here comes the pitch. You stride perfectly, keep you're hands back, then shift your weight and start your swing as the 97 MPH fastball whizzes in at you. You put an absolutely perfect mechanical swing on the ball, except the only problem is the pitch is actually a 73 MPH curveball that just fell off the table and you missed by 8 inches.

In golf, if you do everything perfectly from a mechanical aspect you will get the results you want. If you don't, you'll slice the ball, etc.

In baseball, if you do everything perfectly from a mechanical apsect at the plate you aren't guarenteed a damn thing because of the outside influence of the pitch.

If your batter had done everything perfectly he would have been looking for the spin on the ball instead of guessing fastball and looking like a complete idiot. You do everything perfectly and you will get the result you want - otherwise you're not doing it perfectly are you?

[ehh]

Re: Is Tiger The Most Intimidating, Imposing and Frightening Figure Ever in Sports?

If your batter had done everything perfectly he would have been looking for the spin on the ball instead of guessing fastball and looking like a complete idiot. You do everything perfectly and you will get the result you want - otherwise you're not doing it perfectly are you?

I said I was only talking about the mechanics of your swing.

[ComfortablyLomb]

Re: Is Tiger The Most Intimidating, Imposing and Frightening Figure Ever in Sports?

Mechanics aren't everything in either golf or baseball. Ask Jim Furyk about having good mechanics, he has an awful swing but I hear he's no slouch. Remember, you're not selling jeans, you're trying to execute. Mechanics can help but they're not even close to being everything.

[Brandon13]

Re: Is Tiger The Most Intimidating, Imposing and Frightening Figure Ever in Sports?

Tiger comes back from three strokes down going into the final round to Vijay and wins by two strokes. The win gives him five in a row.

Tiger is just unreal.

[poster]

Re: Is Tiger The Most Intimidating, Imposing and Frightening Figure Ever in Sports?

Tiger comes back from three strokes down going into the final round to Vijay and wins by two strokes. The win gives him five in a row.

Tiger is just unreal.

Ya he snached the lead pretty quick. He is playing at an amazing level right now. Vijay's 61 and Tiger's 63 were fun to watch.

[ehh]

Re: Is Tiger The Most Intimidating, Imposing and Frightening Figure Ever in Sports?

Mechanics aren't everything in either golf or baseball. Ask Jim Furyk about having good mechanics, he has an awful swing but I hear he's no slouch. Remember, you're not selling jeans, you're trying to execute. Mechanics can help but they're not even close to being everything.

You're confusing an awful swing with an unorthodox swing. Jim Furyk has a consistant, yet unorthodox, swing. He has created a unique mechanic that he uses - but he uses it over and over again. Same thing with Shawn Marion and his disgusting jump shooting form. Looks ugly, but it works cause they practice it over and over and over again.

[ComfortablyLomb]

Re: Is Tiger The Most Intimidating, Imposing and Frightening Figure Ever in Sports?

Okie, I'll buy the distinction between the two.

[sroz39]

Re: Is Tiger The Most Intimidating, Imposing and Frightening Figure Ever in Sports?

I've played both golf and baseball at a relatively high level (Connie Mack level baseball and and an 8 handicap in golf) and I can tell you that golf is many times over more difficult than baseball. I faced pitchers with fastballs in the high 80's and dirty junk and that didn't compare to the difficulty of breaking 80 at a 7000+ yard course.

There's no comparison.

[dbrandon]

Re: Is Tiger The Most Intimidating, Imposing and Frightening Figure Ever in Sports?

Edwin Moses the great hurdler was right up there. Carl Lewis?

[dbrandon]

Re: Is Tiger The Most Intimidating, Imposing and Frightening Figure Ever in Sports?

Tiger is the most dominant athlete right now but not of all time.

That title arguably should go to U.S. 400-meter hurdler Edwin Moses. He was unbeaten in 122 consecutive races from 1977 to 1987. That's right: The man never lost a race in a 10-year span.

During that dominance, he set the world record twice, won three World Cup titles, two World Championships and a second Olympic gold medal in Los Angeles.

Something tells me that Tiger won't go unbeaten in every tournament he enters over the next 10 years. Tiger is tops now, but he'll never approach Moses' dominance.

Take care,
PK

Didn't see this post. I thought I would be the only one to say Edwin Moses.
What a gifted athlete.