Let's Talk About Dominance

The summer is slow for sports, especially considering I'm a pretty casual baseball fan, so the past two years I've grown interested in sports I previously couldn't care less about. One of them is Golf.

Midway through the U.S. Open, I figure this is a good time to write this post. Now, I'm very new to Golf, so I won't even pretend to try to break down the U.S. Open, but like most Golf bandwagoners, I'm most interested in Tiger Woods.

The word that surrounds Tiger is dominance. People constantly say he is the most dominant golfer of his generation. Some even claim he's the most dominant ever. When I was younger, I didn't quite understand how. I heard about him winning some tournaments, but mostly I just watched short highlights of Tiger struggling and people making a deal of him not winning.

Then I understood what dominance means in the realm of Golf. You see, dominance across different fields means something entirely different. The cameras are always on Tiger, so if he's playing in an event, he'll be the focal point. And the truth of the matter is, over his career, Tiger has only won about 28% of majors. In some sports, that would be strong, but hardly dominant. The word dominance is thrown around, and uniformed people don't always realize that dominance means something very different in different sports.

In Tennis, Roger Federer was virtually unbeatable from 2004 to 2007. He won 11 of 16 grand slams and at one point made the Finals in 24 straight tournaments. That is simply ridiculous.

The 1996 Chicago Bulls won 87% of their games and won an NBA Championship. They only lost 10 games in the regular season and went 15-3 in the playoffs, an overlooked statistic of that season. They would go on to win the next two championships, totalling 6 for Michael Jordan's career. It was essentially impossible to beat Jordan's Bulls in a 7-game series. Going back to his first champioship in 1991, Jordan only faced two 7-game series and completed 9 sweeps in 6 playoff campaigns.

Michael Phelps has won 14 gold medals in two different strokes over 3 seperate distances, oh, and in 2008, 7 of 8 gold medals were won with World Record times. (Bizarrely, the 100m Fly, arguably his best event, is the only event he doesn't hold the record in). Essentially, if you got into a pool and raced Phelps in 2008, there was literally no chance you could win.

Tiger has won just 6 of his last 15 majors. This seems quite ordinary in comparison. Yet he is considered extremely dominant in the golf world. Why is that? Because Golf is an extremely difficult sport to dominate. In Tennis, all you have to do is beat your opponent. In Golf, you have to beat fields of 150+ players. In Swimming, you swim the same distance and lap no matter where you are. In Golf, every course you play is extremely different from the last. In Basketball, there are players who can do things that others simply can't. In Golf, every player has essentially the same physical capabilities and shot arsenal.

Put this into perspective. Mark Spitz was equally as dominant as Phelps in 1992. He won all 7 events he swam in, and almost didn't start the 100m freestyle because there was a chance he could finish second. In Tennis, Pete Sampras won 14 grand slams, the same as Federer. From 1959-1969, Red Auerbach and Bill Russell's Boston Celtics won 10 of 11 titles, and were probably even more dominant than Jordan.

Look back at the legends of Golf:

• Arnold Palmer's prime lasted from 1960 to 1964, when he won 6 of 19 majors. But over his entire career, he only won 7 majors in 142 starts, just under 5%.
• Jack Nicklaus's prime was much longer, when he won 17 majors from 1962 through 1980. Still, that was good for just a 22% winning percentage. He was 11% in majors over his entire career.
• Walter Hagen won 10 majors from 1919 through 1929, good for a 39% winning percentage, but even he won just 20% of major starts over his entire career.

So if you match Tiger with the legends of his sport, not only has he been more dominant so far (28% over his entire career), but he also won much quicker than most golf legends, having won his first major in only his third year as a pro. Plus, he's the only golfer in the modern era to hold all four major championships at one time.

So, you have to understand, dominance in golf means winning 20% of majors when everyone else has maybe one or two wins for their entire careers. If you hit a Home Run every 5 at-bats when the next best player in the game has just 3 Home Runs in their entire career, you are extremely dominant. We just get carried away. We hear "dominance", and we think "has to win everytime or it's a disappointment". That isn't how golf works.

There are WAY more people who have a chance to win. (Think how many NBA franchises actually stood a chance to win this season... 4, 5 tops???) There is also only so much you can do on a golf course. You are somewhat dependant on weather and there isn't anything that you can physically do that all other players can't as well.

Tiger isn't going to win the U.S. Open this year, and no, he didn't win The Master's either, but just remember how absurd the question: "Tiger or the Field", is when the field consists of over 150 players who have the same exact arsenal of shots that Tiger has.