golfrewind.com

Amazing numbers, droogy; thanks. In the early 1990s, when I started following golf again, I subscribed to the conventional wisdom of that time that we would never again witness a Nicklaus-like dominance on the pro tour, because there was too much talent out there for anyone to dominate. Guess I was wrong. Sheesh.

Key word there being "PGA Tour only." I think if you add the other tours in, Els and Goosen's wins and top 10s go way up. Tiger would go up a bit as well. Every time he plays over there it seems he wins.

Here is an interesting stat based on the other stats. It could be called conversion rate:
Calculated on how many of your top 10's are converted into wins.
Tiger Woods 32 from 79 = 40%
Vijay Singh 20 from 89 = 22%
Phil Mickelson 14 from 69 = 20%
Ernie Els 8 from 48 = 17%
Retief Goosen 6 from 33 = 18%

That shows that apart from Tiger, the other guys are pretty even.
I think Ernie and Retief would have a higher percentage if they competed full time on the pga like Vijay and Phil.

Tiger certainly is better off at finishing off chances, but the other guys are all pretty strong as well.

There was an interesting column about this on ESPN.com yesterday. It was about how players don't get credited for international wins. For example, Greg Norman won about 20 times on the PGA Tour, yet has about 80 victories combined worldwide. Granted not alll the non-PGA wins are against the type of fields you'll see in many PGA tournaments but in many cases they are still quality fields.

As impressive as these stats are if you where to take these guys and see the percentage of events they finish in the top 25 they would be even more impressive. For example in 2005 Vijay Singh played in 30 PGA events and finished 25 times in the top 25. Tiger had 17 top 25's in 21 events in 2005.

Basically these guys are so consistent they are ALWAYS either in the hunt or close to it. Which is what makes them such great players.

Ernie - yes...Goosen - not as much. Goose has been more of a late bloomer. Els has over 40 non-PGA wins, Retief < 20. Good point, though.

Ran similar stats for Nicklaus from 70-74 and Watson from 77-81. I wanted to do a compare of Nicklaus to other top players from 66-70 (to get Nicklaus' stat for the same age range as Tiger). But, pre-70 stats are difficult to find. Fortunately, Jack is "full of himself" and has his year by year numbers on his website http://www.nicklaus.com

Nicklaus from 70-74 (turned 30 in '70)
Top Tens: 72/93 77%
Wins: 24
Majors: 5
Wins as % of Top Tens: 33%
Amazingly, in '73 he was top ten in 17/18 official events. He won 7 of those, including the PGA.

Tom Watson from 77-81 (Watson turned 30 in '79)
Top Tens: 75/116 65%
Wins: 25
Majors: 4
Wins as % of Top Tens: 33%

Trevino from 70-74
Top Tens: 64/149 43%
Wins: 16
Majors: 4
Wins as % of Top Tens: 25%

Johnny Miller in '74
12/22 (55%) in Top Tens and 8 Wins. 75% of Top 10s were W's. But, no majors.

Like Jack writes that stuff. Anyway, it helped you find what you were looking for didn't it?