12/03/24
May 25, 2003
Vijay Singh pulled out of this weekend's PGA stop at the Bank of America Colonial. He didn't put his mouth on the line by competing against Annika Sorenstam. Not to be deprived of the matchup, Videogame guru Sid Meier fires up his game SimGolf and draws up a 3 hole course (called Equality Acres which you can download) with an eye towards levelling the playing field between men and women. He gives us a virtual 'Vijay' vs 'Annika' matchup (NYT link). And who wins? Annika, handily.
I should clarify. I think the Vijay-Annika thing has been discussed, it's over, he didn't play and she didn't make the cut. I think that we're seeing a little overkill of the posts on this subject, a la Bush is a 'tard posts over at Metafilter. Let's just let this issue die, because nothing really interesting happened from this entire issue and piling on Vijay is getting a little tiresome.
posted by therev at 01:06 PM on May 25, 2003
We're going overboard a bit, but there is one interesting thing about this link: Could a golf tournament be designed that put male and female pros close to equal footing? Meier clearly thinks so, but I wonder if the men would dominate a precision game because of their experience on much tougher greens and conditions.
posted by rcade at 01:13 PM on May 25, 2003
I'd be more impressed if they'd matched them up in Links 2003:) As for Vijay, he's a dick. You'd think a guy who has no doubt experienced racism over his life wouldn't be then happy to turn round and be a sexist dickhead...
posted by Drood at 02:17 PM on May 25, 2003
sorry, it wasn't meant to be a news post, just pointing out the videgame part of it. it is lightweight, yeah. bulked it out with news links and perhaps it isn't FPP material. thought it was a little bit interesting though. move along, move along.
posted by gspm at 02:29 PM on May 25, 2003
No, not gonna move along, perfectly legitimate post. Comparing entities via computer model is a specious exercise at best, but a fun one to kick around. We always hear about this computer model pitting Ali vs. Louis (Ali in a landslide) or that one matching up the Big Red Machine vs. '27 Yankees (Yanks) or the Celtics of the Sixties vs. Jordan's Bulls (Gotta go with Jordan). It make even more virtual sense in golf, where the layout of a given playfield absolutely can benefit one type of golfer over another. It's fun to speculate on woulda, coulda, shoulda. The only problem with the example cited is it designs 4 holes of golf biased towards Annika's game viz Vijay. WTF is that? If you're going to make a model that simulates the conditions, then do that. 18 distinct holes played four times each, with a multiplier factored in for "playing under pressure". It's still okay to bias the layout for an individual strenght, but do it under the conditions that will be present (in other words, allow for Vijay to adust and for Annika to overcome a bad round). I like Annika, handily. And my last word apropo of nothing. Tiger rules golf. Tiger is, right now anyway, bigger than golf. Vijay, Nick Price, and Fulton Allen (who the fuck is he anyway?) are making Million$ on Tiger's back. So as long as Tiger is OK with it, they should all shut the fuck up and be good little golfing boys and go along with it.
posted by vito90 at 08:54 PM on May 25, 2003
So?