You know something is wrong with America if the toughest athlete is yes, you guessed it right: Tiger Woods!! http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/extramustard/03/28/25.toughest.athletes/ Whiny-pussy generation's idol, a golfer beats boxers, martial artists and endurance athletes for the toughest spot??? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I'd guess they should divide up the athletes between mental toughness and physical toughness. I'd agree that Tiger is mentally tough but not that physically tough in the sense of who were mentioned in the article. To be honored along with physically tough people isn't a very well thought out way of doing things.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Chessplayers or pokerplayers (if golf is a sport) not to mention racecar drivers have a much bigger mental stress than swinging a club in a beautiful enviroment...
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! There you go again. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Which generation do you think golf is most popular? Not the young generation.
Poker players? There is an aspect of mental toughness, but in reality, poker comes to be about as mentally stressful (and active, I might add) as watching TV. This happens when good players start being able to decide their moves automatically, in split seconds. Good players are not often under big mental stress. They are detatched, and they almost all learn that it is stupid to feel bad about losses. Losing a 20,000$ hand when they were favored to win by 99% will not stress them. That is a non-event to a typical good poker player, on one of their 24 hour, adderall-charged nights of sitting in front of the computer playing online poker.
I thought people who fought with their bare hands were never a match for people with weapons. If that's the case, then Tiger Woods and his golf clubs could easily beat Fedor and Silva in a fight. Zdeno Chara would also present a bit of a challenge with his hockey stick, but he loses points for being a "specialist" (only capable of combat on ice). Tiger has shown unwavering proficiency despite multiple types of terrain (grass, taller grass, bushes, sand) so I'm sure his pronged golf shoes would adequately deal with the ice. Lastly, there's Lance Mackey. The fact that he is a Charioteer (pulled by dogs which are also formidable) gives him enough edge to stand a chance, but his cancer handicaps him. He needs to be at 100% to defend against Tiger and his super-human swing.
I see you never played poker. First, it is endurance because several poker games take hours. Hell, tournaments take days and 6-8 hours a day!!! Read the book Positively 5th street, about the World series of poker championship. Not to mention that the prize money is up to 5+ millions nowadays and a losing hand can easily mean 1-3 million plus or minus at the end game. In poker the extra stress comes from the LUCK part of the game. In most games it is your skill vs. the others' skill, but in poker you can have a bad run of luck and out of the game....
I have played poker. My comments were not just based on my experiences though, I know people who have gone far in WSOP tables, and in one case, won an event. As I said, the luck part of the game is not going to bother them. From early on, most of them have the mindset that it is long term wins that count. See my earlier example of losing a big hand that they were incredibly favored in.
So are you arguing that golf has a higher level of stress than tournemant poker? I think we agree that it doesn't...
