Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Golf/NGOLF

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New guidelines

Following the RFC, it will (almost certainly) be necessary to make amendments to WP:NGOLF in order to comply with the (almost certain) removal of participation based criteria. To that end, I have started putting together a replacement on this page. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 14:12, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Current wording

This is the current wording of NGOLF:

Significant coverage is likely to exist for golf figures if:

1. They have competed in the Ryder Cup, Presidents Cup, Solheim Cup, or similar international competition
2. They are enshrined in one of golf's recognized Halls of Fame (example: World Golf Hall of Fame)
3. They have won at least one professional golf tournament (examples: PGA Tour, LPGA Tour, European Tour, PGA Tour Champions)
4. They have won at least one recognized amateur golf tournament at the national or international level (examples: U.S. Amateur, British Amateur)
5. They have made the cut in one of the four Men's major golf championships, one of the Women's major golf championships (past or present), or one of the Senior major golf championships (past or present)
6. They have competed as a professional on the PGA, LPGA, European, or Champions Tour for at least one full year

Broadcasters, caddies, course designers etc

Is this just for players or do we need to think about the above. I'd expect anyone who is not covered by NGOLF would fall under the standard criteria for notability e.g. Jim "Bones" Mackay, Pete Dye, Allan Robertson, Tom Abbott? Jopal22 (talk) 14:37, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

I suggest that we restrict ourselves to players. Anyone else can be covered in other ways, eg WP:GNG, etc. Nigej (talk) 14:48, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

That's what I initially thought, but then CEO of PGA Tour etc is mentioned. I suppose at the moment it's very Majors, PGA Tour and European Tour biased. That leaves a problem for players before these started ( I mentioned Robertson but he would be covered by HoF ), but also players like Dan Soutar wouldn't be covered. Jopal22 (talk) 14:53, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

What about someone like Turk Pettit, do we think he should fall in or out of notability? Jopal22 (talk) 14:55, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) We can include people (or anything else) from any aspect of golf, as long as we can clearly and concisely define criteria, which is very difficult with caddies and course designers. Not being covered by this guideline does not automatically mean someone is not notable. The default fallback for anything not covered by NSPORT is any other relevant notability guideline, and ultimately WP:BASIC/WP:GNG. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 14:58, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Some might be covered elsewhere, eg WP:NCOLLATH. Nigej (talk) 15:00, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Some numbers

• Based on categories we have 4,700 golfers. A few are notable elsewhere (eg Bing Crosby, Dan Quayle but we're talking small numbers). Male (3,600), Female (1,050), others not specific. 3,400 living.
• Date of birth: 19th century: 570, 1900-1949 1000, 1950s 430, 1960-1999 2,550, 2000+ 50, some unspecified. So looks like about 60% are born post-c. 1955 and would be covered by the OWGR-era (1986) - although the WWGR is later of course.
• Men who've reached the top 100 in the OWGR: 730 (we have articles for all of them). About 500 have got to 200 but not 100. We have articles for 90+% of these. Still leaves a lot of modern golfers who've never reached the top-200.
• World golf hall of fame: 164
• Ryder Cup: 350. Clearly nearly all of these would be caught by other criteria. Stewart Burns comes to mind as of the very few who might not - made the cut in the Open but not top 10 (selected, although he didn't actually play in any matches).

The biggest "catch-all" criteria is the "made the cut in a major". I'll try to come up with guesstimates for those covered by this. We've had 227 different winners of the men's majors (not seniors). In the past we have discussed whether this should be "made the top-10 in a major" (we still have quite a few missing of these, see User:Tewapack/Golfer red-links/Majors top 10. There's also the issue of the Opens and the early Masters which didn't have a cut and the old match-play USPGAs.

Another issue is whether we should include the Walker Cup and Curtis Cup. 620 Walker Cup players. Plenty of coverage of amateur golf in the old days. Nigej (talk) 16:41, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Men's majors since 1958 (that's about 250 majors ago, approximate numbers): played 5,500, played 72 holes in a major 2,300, top-20 950, top-10 610. So actually "top-10" is quite restrictive. Roughly 2.5 new top-10s every major (the other 7.5+ have been there before), so 10 new ones per year (2.5x4). By comparison roughly 20 new players get in the OWGR top-100 each year. I haven't checked but I suspect that the OWGR criteria gives a wider spread of nationalities than the "top 10 in a major", since entry to majors is dominated by golfers from the main golfing nations. Nigej (talk) 13:38, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of "made the cut in a major". If someone has made the cut in a major and doesn't meet any of the other guidelines, almost always that article is a stub. pʰeːnuːmuː →‎ pʰiːnyːmyː → ‎ɸinimi → ‎fiɲimi 18:51, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree with pʰeːnuːmuː. I came across the "Made a cut in a major" criterion a few months ago and was a bit surprised. Seems like such a flimsy justification for an entire Wikipedia page. Whether you finished T-35 in the 1958 Open Championship doesn't mean much to me.

In addition, the Ryder Cup criterion is almost as unjustified. As Nigej says, almost all of these players make it through some other category. And don't forget, it was largely considered a late season exhibition for most of its history.

Oogglywoogly (talk) 04:14, 26 March 2022 (UTC)Oogglywoogly

My thoughts on notability for modern male golfers

This is basically my gut feeling on when a modern male golfer becomes notable enough for an article:

1. PGA Tour: I think any player who earns a PGA Tour card is notable.
2. Korn Ferry Tour: Winning twice in a season (see also point 1).
3. European Tour: Winning, or finishing in the top 110 of the R2D (or, when it becomes clear that he will).
4. Challenge Tour: Three-win promotion or winning the rankings.
5. OWGR: Reaching the top 150.
6. Majors: Top-10 finish (I could be convinced to make it top-20; note that all pros in the Masters and non-club pros in the PGA Championship should already be notable).
7. Other tours: Money list titles for Sunshine, Asian, Australasia, Japan; winning a Japan Open or Australian Open; otherwise I think point 5 is sufficient.
8. Amateurs: Winning U.S. Amateur or British Amateur; winning NCAA individual title; being #1 in WAGR; winning any of the NCAA player of the year awards (Hogan, Nicklaus, Haskins); being low amateur in a major.
9. Seniors: Winning on PGA Tour Champions (not sure about the European Senior Tour).

pʰeːnuːmuː →‎ pʰiːnyːmyː → ‎ɸinimi → ‎fiɲimi 19:47, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Notability for tournaments/events

I assume events on the PGA Tour and Euro Tour are notable for pages. But beyond those tours does anybody have any thoughts around guidelines for tournaments? Jimmymci234 (talk) 21:24, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

I would say any tournament that has ever been sanctioned by any of the tours that are part of the International Federation of PGA Tours. In addition, any tournament that has ever been held on the British PGA Circuit, Asia Golf Circuit, or Safari Circuit. I don't follow developmental tours much but probably any Korn Ferry or Challenge Tour event would do. Not sure about the tours below that though.

I don't follow women's golf much but probably any event on the LPGA Tour and Ladies European Tour. Not sure about the developmental tours though.

Also, any event sanctioned by the USGA and R&A should qualify. Perhaps we could also establish criteria for any national open, national amateur, or national professional tournament (e.g. New Zealand Open, New Zealand Amateur, New Zealand PGA Championship).

Oogglywoogly (talk) 04:43, 26 March 2022 (UTC)Oogglywooggly

Ideas & observations from Oogglywoogly...

• First off, I think we're getting a little too bogged down in minutiae. I think we can work out whether certain golf course designers, caddies, journalists, etc. meet the criteria later. Establishing precise criteria for them may take a long time and I don't think it's worth it at this point...

• Could we create one long thread for this conversation? I think that would facilitate a much more fluid discussion.

• When I created my first page someone notified me, I believe, that only three or four reliable third-party sources were needed to justify the publication of a page. It seemed like a low bar but if this is true is this all that is needed? Perhaps we don't need this lengthy list of stipulations.

Beneath is my criteria for notability. I largely follow men's golf (regular tours) so this criteria focuses on that. The criteria might seem simple but I think we should keep it simple (the general discussion is already getting a bit unwieldy). It isn't perfect but I believe the criteria below probably captures about 98% of notable golfers. In addition, I don't think there are too many irrelevant golfers in this batch. Anyway here it is:

1) Any member of the PGA Tour or European Tour

2) Any golfer who has won a tournament on the British PGA circuit, Japan Golf Tour, Asian Tour, Asia Golf Circuit, Sunshine Tour, or PGA Tour of Australasia.

3) Any player who has won a tournament that has been retroactively classified as a PGA Tour win.

4) Any player who has won a tournament in the early-mid 20th century that was eventually incorporated into the Japan Golf Tour, Asian Tour, Asia Golf Circuit, Sunshine Tour, or PGA Tour of Australasia calendars

5) Any player that has reached the top 200 of the world

6) Any champion of the U.S. Amateur and British Amateur.

A qualifier: Consensus can be created on WP:GOLF to determine if other potentially notable golfers or other golf-related professionals who do not meet this criteria are worthy of articles.

Oogglywoogly (talk) 03:43, 26 March 2022 (UTC)Oogglywoogly

What NGOLF isn't, and what it is or could be

WP:NGOLF is part of WP:NSPORT. It's important to note that NGOLF does not define who is notable and who isn't, that's not its purpose. It was meant to provide a set of bright-line rules (i.e. clearly defined) so that a non-golfer finding a stub-type article can quickly decide whether that person is likely to be notable. However it's also taken on a role of defining (perhaps informally) which articles a WikiProject thinks ought to exist - the "complete set" idea. Personally I think this is quite a useful concept, as long as the criteria are well defined (there's been much discussion in the team sports area to the effect that some criteria are so loose that it's let to the creation of large numbers of stub articles for players who are not notable). We can specify criteria which say which articles we'd like to have and which ones we're less keen on (although the criteria need to be based on those passing having significant coverage). Of course, if someone creates an article which shows significant coverage, then that article won't be deleted, even if it fails NGOLF. However if someone creates a biography for someone who fails NGOLF and which doesn't show significant coverage, then that might be a reason to go to WP:AfD. Nigej (talk) 07:08, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Consensus, anyone?

I think we should participate in a discussion to create a consensus about notability criteria. Right now it seems that we have a bunch of isolated discussions running around but little effort to synthesize our ideas.

Thanks, Oogglywoogly (talk) 04:04, 28 March 2022 (UTC)Oogglywoogly

A call for collaborative discussion...

I mentioned this earlier... I think it's a good time for us to collaborate. We have a lot of disparate ideas but I think it's time to synthesize them. Let's discuss!

Thanks, Oogglywoogly (talk) 04:31, 31 March 2022 (UTC)Oogglywoogly

Do we need anything at all?

The first question to be answered is whether we need anything at all. There's no actual requirement for us to have anything. A look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Golf/archive shows that golf biographies rarely come up at AfD. This seems to be the last one: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kamaiu Johnson and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sky Sudberry before that back in 2020. I suppose the argument for having something is to provide some sort of guidance for new editors who might be tempted to create stub-type articles, even if currently there's no issue in that area. Nigej (talk) 06:16, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

I would say yes we do need to do something since, although we have not seen issues at AFD like other sports, the current guidance is woolly, with phrases such as "or similar" and "examples" – these need to be a definitive list. Per the above, it is also probably too inclusive with respect to making the cut in majors. And "competed for one full year" on tour is also a bit loose (and falls foul of the removal of simple participation criteria). _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 07:47, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Yeah I think we do too. For me at least, I tend to focus on obscure golfers and these guidelines would help me give definition on who to create pages for and who not to.

In addition, I agree with everything wjemather said above. Some of these phrases are unclear, in particular with reference to a player's tour status (the word membership, in my opinion, should be used). Also, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I do not like the "major championship" criterion at all. A lot of random guys have played in (and made the cut in) these events. Fulfilling this criterion simply isn't nearly enough to justify an entire Wikipedia page.

Oogglywoogly (talk) 04:28, 1 April 2022 (UTC)Oogglywoogly

Amateur's criteria

Currently item 2 covers amateurs: "They have won at least one recognized amateur golf tournament at the national or international level (examples: U.S. Amateur, British Amateur)". As noted above this is decidedly "woolly" and needs firming up. I agree with the proposed item 6 "They have won either the The Amateur Championship (British Amateur) or U.S. Amateur" as long as we add the corresponding Women's events: Women's British Open and United States Women's Amateur Golf Championship which share many features with the two men's events, being regarded as "amateur majors". Probably simplest to leave it at that since these 4 are clearly (from a historical perspective) in a class of their own. Nigej (talk) 17:06, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

For amateurs, I think this is a good start. A related issue came up a few months ago on the talk page (I think we were talking about the South African Amateur). I believe User:Wjemather stated that really only champions of the U.S. Amateur and British Amateur were definitely worthy of pages before they turned professional. In my opinion, he's probably right. For the rest of the guys, even if they had quite a bit of success before the pros, I think it's a bit of wait and see...

Also, Nigej, with the female golfers analogue, overall I agree with you, but I assume you are referring to The Womens Amateur Championship and not the Women's British Open?

Oogglywoogly (talk) 04:52, 1 April 2022 (UTC)Oogglywoogly

Yes. I meant the amateur event. Not sure what you mean by a "good start". Are you thinking of other criteria for amateurs? Nigej (talk) 05:23, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Yeah I guess my comments were a bit contradictory. At one end we could make a full stop at US Am/Brit Am champions. But perhaps we could include winners of some other notable amateur events (e.g. Western Amateur, NCAA Championship). Basically, I don't know much about amateur stuff so I'm not exactly sure where the line should be drawn. What are your thoughts as your seem to know quite a bit about the amateur game...

Thanks,

Oogglywoogly (talk) 03:46, 2 April 2022 (UTC)Oogglywoogly

My suggestion above was

• Winning U.S. Amateur or British Amateur; winning NCAA individual title; being #1 in WAGR; winning any of the NCAA player of the year awards (Hogan, Nicklaus, Haskins); being low amateur in a major.

pʰeːnuːmuː →‎ pʰiːnyːmyː → ‎ɸinimi → ‎fiɲimi 03:53, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

The question then is whether we want to go down this route of having a longer list of more detailed criteria or whether we want to keep it concise. My own preference is for not having these, particularly the US-based ones. Nigej (talk) 06:24, 2 April 2022 (UTC)