If, AND ONLY IF, your definition of "best ever" equals something like "who had the highest rating ever," or "who played the best at a single point and time ever." By that standard, you must consider that two years before Paul hit 1046, I believe Feldberg did. So are we now saying the discussion is between Feldberg and McBeth? I think not. Not very many considered Feldberg the GOAT, even for a short period of time.
In my definition, "the best ever" includes domination in terms of winning overall, winning the biggest events, maintaining that high rating, etc. over a time. And Champ still has that. If your definition is something else then, cool, I get it. It's just not what I consider "the best ever."
That's exactly the point. I see the ratings as a measure of how well the player shoots. Long-term, a player with a 10 point rating advantage over another player will win more events, that's math. Especially, if you take it as Steve and others have presented ratings, that it is this universal number that encompasses all players and goes back to the beginning. If that assesment is correct, then we have to accept that the rating between those two players means something. I don't know that I buy that, but I'm not covering reality, only the reality that exists if we accept that ratings are universal and always cross-compatible.
The Feldberg case is interesting. David hit 1046 once. For a couple month period. He had a three-year stretch where he consistently was over 1040. I'm guessing that's when he won worlds and displaced Ken, but I've not looked. Paul has been over 1040 for the past six years, and often enough over 1050. If we take the meat of those two periods, and put them head to head, you've got some damn good golf, equivalent to the Ricky Paul competition. If you take the meat of that three year period, David is beating Ken at any period during Ken's career, if ratings match up, one to one.
You can't factor in how these players would match up, i.e. how the head to head match up would go, in terms of mental toughness. I grant that, but neither David or Ken had Ricky breathing down their necks. I think a good argument can be made that Paul had more pressure, but I've not gone player to player to see who pressured them, so I wouldn't bet on that.
As many have pointed out, it changes due to the fact that Paul gets to make this a career, David was closer to that status than Ken. How would those player's ratings have changed if they were here today? That goes back to my original question. What happens if you move players around in time?
But, the flat out assessment of who's better, based on ratings, well, Paul wins, he beats Feldberg and Climo, based on length of being at the top, and overall ratings. BTW - If you simply move Ricky into Feldberg's prime or Climo's prime, the world is a very different place. Neither looks nearly as dominant. Climo was lucky, he became dominant before the sport "took off." He couldn't do what he did back then, today. IMO, no one could.
