Vijay Singh thread

[BSharma]

She is playing the same game..same tees..same rules.

Annika plays on the same course when she plays with the men on the PGA Tour. The LPGA Tour golf course is set easier than the PGA Tour course.

I am not a woman-hater ( ) but the reason why many PGA golfers complain about women playing on the PGA Tour is because they take a place of a PGA player. I think that if the women play the Monday qualifier or if they get into the PGA Tour via the PGA Qualifying Tournament then there will be less resistance.

Male players in many sports have complained about women getting into the men's team based on criteria other than merit. Annika is dominating the LPGA Tour but I am not sure that she can play better than the top 125 PGA Tour players if she has to go out and play on the PGA Tour week after week. Keep in mind that the women players enter PGA tournaments where the golf courses suit their game.

One can argue that Annika's presence on the PGA Tour event via a sponsor's exemption brings more paying people to the tournament/higher TV ratings and hence the Tour makes more money, and some of it may end up with the players. Some male players are afraid to lose (based on # of strokes per round) to a woman whether the female golfer makes the cut or not.

[arjun2761]

Annika is obviously far better than most of the men playing PGA tour.

Not a chance!! Annika would struggle to do well on the Indian PGA Tour. Day in and day out there are probably close to a 1000 men who could dominate the LPGA including those like Harmeet Kahlon or SSP Chowrasia!!

[forpar]

If Annika is taking up lot of sponsor exemptions and thus taking up spots of another male player(who obviously toil a lot to get there), then it's different.
She very rarely plays on men's tour and even if not exempted, I would think she will make most of the cuts with her amazing consistency. In my mind, she is much better than Woods or Singh in consistency. She is a machine.

But the reason why some of them opposed to this idea is just becoz they dont like it. I wonder if they would have same opinion if their own daughter is a phenom like Michelle. one can never restrict talent. Annika and Michelle are the best talent in their own right and anyone like that would be wanting to test against the best. If its the men's tour, then so be it. Annika said her short game has improved tremendously watching and playing with men.

[BSharma]

She very rarely plays on men's tour and even if not exempted, I would think she will make most of the cuts with her amazing consistency. In my mind, she is much better than Woods or Singh in consistency. She is a machine.

Now you are making me dig deep into my memory to recall some data.

Annika has participated in only one PGA Tour event and played in the Bank of America Invitational in 2003 (Vijay won the EDS Byron Nelson amidst the Annika controversy a week earlier).

Why did she choose to play in the Fort Worth tournament?

Because the tournament is an invitational event and the golf course is not very long and it requires the skills to do well that Annika is best at.

How well did she do?

The 2003 tournament was held under ideal conditions (no wind) and Annika failed to make the cut by 4 strokes.

Kenny Perry won the Colonial that year with a tournament record 19-under par total.

[forpar]

Obviously, she chose the Fort Worth bcoz it suits her game well. She was about to create history being the first to play in men's tour and she might have planned for it from a long time.
Most of the big players choose the venues which suit them. Tiger does that too.(ofcourse our vijay conquers everything). Tiger carefullly chooses venues and plays only where he feels he has best shot at winning, other than Majors ofcourse.

And I remember Annika saying once she was never so tense in her life like on the first tee at Colonial. she is not a spotlight girl. she used to lose golf tournaments so that she could escape the victory speech . well..my point is eventhough she missed the cut, that's not her true measure. she played in a couple of exihibition matches or friendly matches after that with men and she did pretty good.(recently in that lake nona vs Isleworth).

I find it hard to believe Arjun's comment too. I havn't seen the golfers he mentioned play, but I have seen Annika play and other regular PGA golfers play. I mean she is never in trouble. she rarely misses fairways and greens. I believe she will beat most of the pga players if she were a regular on pga. Am I the only one feeling like this ? may be i am crazy. But i guess we will never get any proof of that, so we will never know.

[BSharma]

forpar,

Annika is one of my favorite golfers also and I am amazed at het talent. She has lifted women's golf to a new high and I consider her at par with another player named Martina Navratalova who raised the bar of women's tennis with her athleticism. Annika has worked hard in the gym to add distance to her golf drives.

However, doing well in golf is more than having an accurate drive. Here is how well the top 5 male golfers have done in driving accuracy and greens in regulation on the PGA Tour:

Driving accuracy:
Rank; Player
#67 Retief Goosen
#85 Vijay Singh
#147 Ernie Els
#153 Phil Mickelson
#163 Tiger Woods

Greens in regulation:
#2 Vijay Singh
#4 Tiger Woods
#9 Ernie Els
#20 Phil Mickelson
#32 Retief Goosen

The top players drive the ball about 25 to 30 yards longer than Annika (270 yards average) and even when they get the ball in the rough rather than on the fairways, they are able to get the ball on the green better than other players. Annika's driving distance will rank her about 179th on the PGA Tour. The roughs play harder on the PGA course than on the LPGA course and she may find it harder to get the ball on the green if she gets into the rough on the PGA Tour.

Annika is a great golfer but IMHO she will not make the top 125 on the PGA Tour if she plays week after week on the tour. Tiger, Ernie and Phil select the courses where they can do well in the tournaments but the PGA golfers ranked in the 60 to 125 category toil week after week to earn the PGA Tour card for the following year.

[BSharma]

my point is eventhough she missed the cut, that's not her true measure. she played in a couple of exihibition matches or friendly matches after that with men and she did pretty good.(recently in that lake nona vs Isleworth).

Playing an exhibition match is very different from playing a regular tournament. The players are guaranteed a large amount of money to play in exhibitions and they are often playing for fun to earn that extra money (e.g., skins games). None of the PGA Tour golfers get appearance money for regular PGA tournaments and if Tiger failed to make the cut at EDS Byron Nelson last week, he went home with an empty wallet. (I would like to have his "empty wallet", however). Some PGA golfers get extra money for making appearance at special sponsor's events during a PGA tournament. The point is that PGA golfers are less serious when they play in a skins game but are deadly serious when it comes to the PGA Tour.

[Kumar]

Looks like we are veering away from the topic



Annika is a great player in LPGA.. I don't think she will do that well for the same reasons Bhushan had laid out.. PGA tour, week in and week out is a grind and the amount of competition there will stump her..

If she is really that serious about competing with guys, I have no problems as long as she goes through qualifiers/ NW tour / etc..

I think Michelle Wie has a gr8 chance to make some mark in PGA tour..She has a big drive , but her short game still needs work.. But she is what 15? or 16? .. So I won't be surprised to see her win some and may be even play regularly in PGA Tour..

[BSharma]

Looks like we are veering away from the topic

Yes Sir.

Back to business.

Here is an interesting fact from the PGATour website (the links do not stay active for more than a day, and hence a partial quote for our interest):

"Since the start of the 2003 season, Vijay Singh has played in 71 events and has won 16 times, plus 13 other finishes in the top three when you count his tie for third at the EDS Byron Nelson Championship. His $23,770,879 in that span alone would put him sixth on the TOUR All-Time Money List."

Vijay's performance over the past 29 months would make a golfer eligible for the World Golf Hall of Fame.

[BSharma]

There was a time when Vijay ran across an active runway of an airport to practice golf in Fiji. Now he has been invited to build a golf course in his native Fiji. He has made a trip to Fiji after 9 years and has accepted a Fiji government request to become a national goodwill ambassador. He will meet Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase during the trip and plans to ease the tensions between the indigenous Fijians and the Indians who settled there.

[arjun2761]

(recently in that lake nona vs Isleworth).

I find it hard to believe Arjun's comment too. I havn't seen the golfers he mentioned play, but I have seen Annika play and other regular PGA golfers play. I mean she is never in trouble. she rarely misses fairways and greens. I believe she will beat most of the pga players if she were a regular on pga.

Yes, this is a debate in which it will be hard to find conclusive evidence. The LPGA courses are a lot shorter and a lot more open than the PGA tour courses and their greens are also much less challenging (much lower stimp ratings) so some of the better play is deceptive. The two names I mentioned are folks I haven't seen but I believe they are regulars on the Indian Tour and Kahlon may actually play on the APGA tour as well.

BTW, I did analyze Annika's scores at the Lake Nona competition and the scores there are a bit deceptive. Even though she scored better than 6 of the 17 PGA tour players in 2005 -- the matches were played in a head-to-head fashion in which she went 0-2 against her opponents. The other scores can be very distorted because someone who is behind in another pairing may take chances, etc. and end up inflating their score (I don't believe her 73 bettered any of the winners in any of the groups).

Furthermore, she played there in 2004 also and went 0-2 as well and her 77 was one of the worst scores. Therefore, on a two round sample, I suspect she was one of the worst on that course. I surmise if you put one of the better Indian tour pros (like the two I randomly named) they might do just as well (i.e., score better than 25% of the PGA pros. in a particular round but unable to sustain that level over several rounds).

[radbcc]

http://www.pgatour.com/story/8482172

[BSharma]

I had posted on the home page of Sports-India that Vijay is the youngest golfer to get inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame. Kumar correctly pointed out to me via a PM that Nick Faldo got into the HOF at 40 years of age although his entry was via a different route. My mistake.

Thanks Kumar for correcting my statement on the home page.

[BSharma]

Vijay is world number one golfer once again.

[radbcc]

I am planning on taking my son to see Vijay and others this week at the booz allen classic being played this year at historic congressional country club. it has been a while since vijay came to DC to play. last time he was here, my son managed to get his autograph on a pairing sheet. dont know if he still has it. if any other forum members are planning on attending let me know, we can grab a drink in the clubhouse.