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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Wjemather (talk | contribs) at 10:10, 5 April 2022 (Oogglywoogly's ideas for Notability Guidelines: cmt). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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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. wjematherplease leave a message... 14:12, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
(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. wjematherplease leave a message... 14:58, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Some might be covered elsewhere, eg WP:NCOLLATH. Nigej (talk) 15:00, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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[reply]

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[reply]

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)[reply]

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[reply]

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[reply]

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)[reply]

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). wjematherplease leave a message... 07:47, 31 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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[reply]

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)[reply]

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[reply]
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)[reply]
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 you seem to know quite a bit about the amateur game...
Thanks,
Oogglywoogly (talk) 03:46, 2 April 2022 (UTC)Oogglywoogly[reply]
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)[reply]
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. Opens us up to comments like "my country's awards also get loads of coverage, so they should be added too". Nigej (talk) 06:24, 2 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'd say we shouldn't be adding any criteria where we have a significant proportion of redlinks (or unlinked), especially when many of the bluelinks also do not demonstrate GNG/BASIC passing coverage. As such, I wouldn't support including these additional tournaments or awards until such time that we have passing bios on a substantial majority of the winners. wjematherplease leave a message... 08:06, 2 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah I agree with the above comments. This may turn into a dangerous rabbit hole the more we examine what amateurs deserve what. Right now I think we should leave it with US Am/Brit Am winners.
Oogglywoogly (talk) 03:58, 4 April 2022 (UTC)Oogglywoogly[reply]

Top-n in the world

We seem to have agreement that this is a useful criteria, although we've had various suggestions for n, between 100 and 200 (for the men). As I noted above there have been 730 in the OWGR top-100 since 1986 (35 years ago), which works out at about 20 per year. Based on a list I created a couple of years ago there's an additional 530 (+a small number I would have missed) between 101 and 200, split roughly equally across that range (eg 54 between 101 and 110, 63 between 111 and 120, etc). Based on my list we have following red links:

This list presumably gives an idea who might be the least notable in this category. Only 6 red links between 101 and 150 but 33 between 151 and 200, which perhaps supports a number of 150 but personally I'd be happy with anything in the 100-200 range. Not sure what to do about the older Mark McCormack's world golf rankings, no idea how far it went and whether the data is available. Also for the women a value of 100 seems more sensible that anything higher. Nigej (talk) 11:02, 2 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

For men's golf at least, I feel like the top 200 is the only barometer with precise, descriptive value. OWGR has historically only published the top 200 and, until recently at least, only used the top 200 for its Strength of Field rating. I know we only included the top 100 in the infobox but I think it should have been top 200. Someone also mentioned top 150 earlier. To me, that category seems even more made up.
With this top 200 criterion for the notability guidelines, however, I'm not sure if we need it. It looks like the overwhelming majority of potentially notable golfers will meet another guideline (e.g. PGA Tour member). I feel like adding another criterion may be largely redundant and creating some confusion. And with the guys listed above, I'm not sure if they deserve a page anyway. The whole point of this exercise is, I think, to narrow things and help us focus. If we include this category, I feel like we may be creating a justification for pages that shouldn't really exist.
Oogglywoogly (talk) 04:22, 4 April 2022 (UTC)Oogglywoogly[reply]
Personally I'm more keen on scrapping the PGA Tour Member criteria and having this one. To me this one seems more "performance" based than that one. Nigej (talk) 05:41, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I favour keeping some sort of tour membership criteria, but it's clear the existing criteria are too loose, so I'd suggest a performance based "finished top-x on the end-of-season rankings/standing/money list" or similar (my draft does this rather clumsily and is probably still too loose). wjematherplease leave a message... 15:29, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I just posted something on this talk page which mentioned how I think top 200 is a bit WP:OR. If you earn PGA Tour membership through q-school or the Korn Ferry Tour it's a unique thing. Historically, you earn a physical "card" and will garner some media attention for gaining "PGA Tour membership." For cracking OWGR's top 200, there is no parallel that I know of.
Oogglywoogly (talk) 07:07, 5 April 2022 (UTC)Oogglywoogly[reply]
I've just checked a couple of McCormack's annuals between 1973 and 1983, and the top-25 in his rankings are published in them, so I guess we can go with that? wjematherplease leave a message... 15:29, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm curious how many of those red links already meet other criteria. Looking down the list I can see several that I know off the top of my head do. pʰeːnuːmuː →‎ pʰiːnyːmyː → ‎ɸinimi → ‎fiɲimi 05:20, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Difficult to say (based on the current criteria) since some of those criteria are quite vague (They have won at least one professional golf tournament (examples: PGA Tour, LPGA Tour, European Tour, PGA Tour Champions)). However I suspect that it they were created with reasonable content there wouldn't be any great outcry against them. Nigej (talk) 05:51, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oogglywoogly's ideas for Notability Guidelines

Hello:

Beneath I have written potential guidelines for WP:GOLF. I created something like this before but this one is a bit more detailed.

The primary purpose, overall, is to stimulate more discussion. I feel like earlier on the talk page we were focusing too much on exceptions (i.e. what caddies were notable, if golfers between #151-200 made the cut) and not enough on general criteria. The criteria below, I think, is somewhat broad but at least captures almost all potentially notable golfers and golf-related professionals. I think this is a good starting point and we can refine stuff from here...

Here are my ideas. Feel free to add comments below...

1) Any member of the World Golf Hall of Fame

Originally I thought this criterion was redundant as I thought all members were well-known and would be captured by other criteria. However, I suspect some of these members are from the very early days of golf and would not meet modern criteria. In addition, this criterion may capture other golf-related professionals that may not meet other criteria which largely focuses on touring professionals.

2) Any member of the PGA Tour, European Tour, LPGA Tour, or Champions Tour

I think this is a good catch-all. If other members think this is too capacious please let me know and specifically why.

3) 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.

I think this might be a good catch-all for all top international golfers who never joined the American or European tours. I don't think this category will include any no-names.

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

Anyone who meets this criterion was almost certainly among the top golfers from the early to mid-20th century

5) Any player who has won a tournament from the late-19th century to 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

If criteria #1 and #4 didn't capture everyone potentially notable from the late 19th to early 20th century, I think this category integrates the remaining top golfers form the early era. I can't think of another specific criterion that would do it.

6) Any tournament that has been an official event on the PGA Tour, European Tour, British PGA circuit, Japan Golf Tour, Asian Tour, Asia Golf Circuit, Sunshine Tour, or PGA Tour of Australasia

Jimmymci234 brought up events on the talk page. I think this criterion covers almost all significant contemporary tournaments.

7) Any tournament that was eventually incorporated into the PGA Tour, European Tour, British PGA circuit, Japan Golf Tour, Asian Tour, Asia Golf Circuit, Sunshine Tour, or PGA Tour of Australasia calendars

Same idea as above. This criterion would cover almost all significant early 20th century tournaments

8) Any golf course that has hosted an event on the PGA Tour or European Tour

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

This was discussed extensively on the talk page with User:Nigej and others.

10) Any television golf journalist that has worked full-time for ABC Sports, the BBC, CBS Sports, or NBC Sports. Any print journalist that has worked full-time for Sports Illustrated.

Jopal22 brought up criteria for other golf-related professionals at the beginning of this discussion. I have to say I don't have any great ideas for golf journalists' viability but the ideas I have above are the best I've got. If others have better ideas please write below!

Things I didn't include:

Korn Ferry/Challenge Tour graduates: It seems like members of these tours reach notability when they reach a certain benchmark that qualifies them for the regular tour (e.g. winning three KF events to gain a PGA Tour promotion). So it seems redundant to say "winning three KF events" gains WP notability when "PGA Tour member" already applies.
OWGR Top 200: As I pretty much stated in other posts, I feel like other criteria already works. OWGR is almost always redundant. In addition, it is a bit WP:OR. I've never heard of so-and-so getting media attention for cracking the OWGR's top 200. On the other hand, earning PGA Tour membership through q-school or the developmental school definitely gets some attention.

Thoughts?

Oogglywoogly (talk) 06:47, 5 April 2022 (UTC)Oogglywoogly[reply]

I would scrap 8 (not covered by NSPORT) and 10 (can be covered by GNG, etc). My worry about a number of the others is whether we have a list of these. How do we find out whether someone was ever a member of those tours. And do we have lists of which tournaments were on each of these tours or what the British PGA circuit covered, etc. The purpose of a Bright-line rule is that it provides a "clearly defined rule or standard, composed of objective factors, which leaves little or no room for varying interpretation". Nigej (talk) 07:14, 5 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The problem I see with these criteria is that they are not based on what is 95%+ likely to have significant coverage. And, as Nige says, we simply don't know who would be covered by many of your criteria. wjematherplease leave a message... 10:10, 5 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]