Top 5/10 All Time Greats List

[Getty]

From the where-are-they now department:

JKorver is now a competitive freestyler who is totally immersed and infatuated with the spinning bee. It's
great to have her in the jamily, and she very well could win a world title in Seattle in October.

 

[VictorB]

He won, and I saw him throw a couple of killer rollers. I was impressed, but several notches below blown away.

But he did it with an APX, cyclone, and comet

 

[Three Putt]

But he did it with an APX, cyclone, and comet

He was using a Magnet, but yeah. I remember watching him and Crazy John on a card at Mid Am or KCWO one year; Russell had the Magnet/Comet/Cyclones-thing going on, but I think he had a bag and multiples. Crazy John had an Aviar, two Rocs and a Viper, carried by hand along with a towel and a big red water jug. Between shots he sat on the water jug. His Viper was a KC Pro and where the Climo signature was he wrote "CRAZY" over it with a sharpie. Anyway, it was two of the best disc golfers in the World on one card in the late 90's; there were six molds total between the two of them.

Maybe it was Crazy John's personality with the big head of curly hair and his animated style + the weird water jug thing, but he was the guy we were watching. Ron Russell was just there. I think now if you go back and rank them, nobody would put Crazy in front of Russell. At the time we would have.

 

[biscoe]

From the where-are-they now department:

JKorver is now a competitive freestyler who is totally immersed and infatuated with the spinning bee. It's
great to have her in the jamily, and she very well could win a world title in Seattle in October.

She won the WFDF Overall World Championship a month or so ago just down the road in Richmond.

 

[biscoe]

Maybe it was Crazy John's personality with the big head of curly hair and his animated style + the weird water jug thing, but he was the guy we were watching. Ron Russell was just there. I think now if you go back and rank them, nobody would put Crazy in front of Russell. At the time we would have.

I think we all did back then until 99.

 

[biscoe]

I learned this a long time ago. I watched Scott Stokely play in his prime (late 90's) and was flat-out blown away. He was a walking, talking best shot video waiting to happen. I watched Ron Russell play, he was good. He won, and I saw him throw a couple of killer rollers. I was impressed, but several notches below blown away.

Russell won World's, Stokely didn't, and I'm not qualified to rank disc golfers. :|

Stokely was the most physically gifted player of the time by a long ways and one of the most physically gifted ever. World record distance both forehand and backhand with no one else all that close for a period of time. Analytics would have dictated he would win a bunch of world titles but he did not because Climo's mental toughness was unparalleled. If Ron's putter had not absolutely caught fire for a week in Rochester we would still think of Scott as the better golfer.

 

[Jolt]

She won the WFDF Overall World Championship a month or so ago just down the road in Richmond.

Just googled that, what an odd sport . . but Juliana sure can handle a disc<3

 

[dreadlock86]

Nikko above Doss/Wysocki? I'm struggling with that choice? He had two years where he was the best but still didn't win Worlds in that time, since then he's been all over the place.

Wisecup is one I've never got to see playing but again seems a bit of a stretch over 3 x Doss (in a far more competitive era,) Doss has been consistently at the top of the game for the best part of 18 years now and was the new youth that came through to end the old guards dominance.

yeah, i get that struggle. it's less of a stats thing and more of a skill ceiling, personality, and passion thing. i mean no disrespect to Doss, he's obviously very consistent but he doesn't blow you away. similar to what these guys were just saying about Stokely and Russell.

it's a bit of a hot take but Nikko is a 3x POTY, USDGC champ, and is capable of being the hottest thrower and putter any given day when he turns it on. not as consistent as Doss, no world titles like Doss and Ricky, but one of the most exciting players to watch when he's playing well, IMO.

 

[austinwilliamdg]

I'm a big time basketball fan and these discussions remind me of the peak vs. longevity argument that always occur as well as the "it's a different era" argument that happens with Wilt and Bill Russel and for DG, Climo and Shultz. Something a little different is how to weight a masters champions vs. a regular world championship.

I don't know nearly enough about anything about the pros beyond 5 or so years ago but if I had to make a list, I'd start from this
MPO - Climo, Shultz, McBeth, Wysocki, Doss
FPO - Korver and Paige Pierce

 

[takman]

yeah, i get that struggle. it's less of a stats thing and more of a skill ceiling, personality, and passion thing. i mean no disrespect to Doss, he's obviously very consistent but he doesn't blow you away. similar to what these guys were just saying about Stokely and Russell.

Nikko's skill ceiling, personality, passion, excitement and capabilities are nice and all, but it's not quite Ivy League now is it?

 

[dreadlock86]

if i wanted Ivy League i'd watch rowing

 

[takman]

if i wanted Ivy League i'd watch rowing

It was a joke dred....a metaphor.

 

[ThrowBot]

Nikko's time on top was before I cared much about the top-tier pro side of the sport. (If you can really count it as "time on top" when he never won World's, and "only" notched one USDGC title.)

I guess 3 Player Of The Year titles count for something, but when I see "3X POTY" it seems like an award/statistic I should be tracking while my wife and I toilet train our son.

Looking at it #overall, Nikko's credentials fall well short too many players to consider inclusion in the Top 5 All Time list. And if we're factoring in personality and passion, this is subjective, but based on what I've seen in the past couple years those are detriments to Nikko's case.

 

[SaROCaM]

Nikko's time on top was before I cared much about the top-tier pro side of the sport. (If you can really count it as "time on top" when he never won World's, and "only" notched one USDGC title.)

I guess 3 Player Of The Year titles count for something, but when I see "3X POTY" it seems like an award/statistic I should be tracking while my wife and I toilet train our son.

Looking at it #overall, Nikko's credentials fall well short too many players to consider inclusion in the Top 5 All Time list. And if we're factoring in personality and passion, this is subjective, but based on what I've seen in the past couple years those are detriments to Nikko's case.

If the award was called MVP would you consider it differently?

Only Climo, Barry, and McBeth have won it more than Nikko (tied with Ricky at 3x.) That plus the USDGC win are his main credentials IMO, plus a much higher win percentage than Doss (along with a couple podium finishes at World's, etc.) However, I would put Doss at #5.

IMO the #5 spot is the one up for debate, and it depends on the criteria used and how it is weighted. Doss has 3 World Championships (along with multiple other podium finishes) and a USDGC to go along with it. His 13.6 winning percentage is low relative to the others. It makes it seem like he peaked for the big events vs. the others in my Top 5 who won between about 1/3 and 1/2 their events.

Still, it is hard to argue against 3x World's and 1x USDGC.

The more interesting list to me is #5-10.

 

[ThrowBot]

If the award was called MVP would you consider it differently?

I'm not a big fan of MVP/Axiom either, so that change wouldn't necessarily sway my opinion

I agree that Doss deserves the nod. One interesting thing about Doss, is that his 3 World's wins were spread out from 2005 through 2011. Not sure if that longevity is more or less impressive than 3 wins back-to-back-to-back. Actually, looking more closely, he was either 1st or 2nd at World's 2005-2008, then off the podium for a few years before his final win. And actually back on the podium as recently as 2014.

(Not that those 2nd and 3rd place World's finishes hold that much weight in the Top 5 All Time conversation, just interesting context that I didn't know before digging back through the records.)

 

[ThrowBot]

Only Climo, Barry, and McBeth have won it more than Nikko (tied with Ricky at 3x.) That plus the USDGC win are his main credentials IMO, plus a much higher win percentage than Doss (along with a couple podium finishes at World's, etc.) However, I would put Doss at #5.

Raw win percentage isn't really a good metric to use, in my opinion. Of Nikko's 117 career wins, 4 were in Advanced Ams, and over 70 are in B and C tier events. I'd be interested to see a breakdown of his win % in MPO for A tiers, NT/Pro Tour, and Majors. I feel like those numbers are more relevant when ranking all-time greats.

 

[SaROCaM]

Raw win percentage isn't really a good metric to use, in my opinion. Of Nikko's 117 career wins, 4 were in Advanced Ams, and over 70 are in B and C tier events. I'd be interested to see a breakdown of his win % in MPO for A tiers, NT/Pro Tour, and Majors. I feel like those numbers are more relevant when ranking all-time greats.

That's fair; would be interesting to break it down for the top 10. Still, the difference is fairly significant:

Winning Percentage:
Climo 48.9
Barry 43.7
McBeth 37.8
Ricky 33.6
Nikko 29.1
Feldberg 20.8
Doss 13.6

Would be interested to see if, for example, Doss only played A-tiers and higher for the most part, which could give context to the lower win rate.

 

[dreadlock86]

It was a joke dred....a metaphor.

yeah, mine too

 

[ThrowBot]

That's fair; would be interesting to break it down for the top 10. Still, the difference is fairly significant:

Winning Percentage:
Climo 48.9
Barry 43.7
McBeth 37.8
Ricky 33.6
Nikko 29.1
Feldberg 20.8
Doss 13.6

Would be interested to see if, for example, Doss only played A-tiers and higher for the most part, which could give context to the lower win rate.

Yeah. I feel like there's a distinction between players who prioritize bigger events and therefore have lower win rates, compared to "weekly warrior" players who are filling in their tour (and offseason) schedules with lower-tier events. I don't think one is necessarily "better" than the other, in terms of All-Time Greatness. But the two options do have very distinct impact on raw win percentage.

There is something to be said for playing more events -- even if it's just a smaller scale B or C tier -- but still being in more competitions and winning more often. Until 2019 World's, Emerson Keith's main claim to fame was playing in something like 70 tournaments in a year. (Well over one per calendar week!) And his career win % is over 30, very respectable, but I feel like moving to national-level touring is going to ding that statistic. (Unless he unlocked a new gear at World's and can maintain that level of performance. And if that's the case...watch out!)

Whereas a player like Paul McBeth is very selective about what tournaments he plays, at this point eschewing lower tier events to focus on big tour stops and majors. Some might say he's enjoying the luxury of not worrying about week-to-week expenses so he can skip the filler tournaments. But one thing is for sure: he's not swooping in on B and C tiers to hustle the locals for their lunch money. Actually looking at P McB's tourney results this year (and I'm not counting President's Cup because that's it's own thing) he's played nothing lower than A Tier, mostly Majors/NT/DGPT, and still won 61% of the time !! But that's still just one season. I guess that's the type of thing that gets picked up in the Player Of The Year stat. So maybe I should care more about those 3 years for Nikko, even though I giggle everytime I see "POTY" brought up on this forum.

If there is a class of player that is truly favored by the raw win % stat, it's local pros. Guys who don't tour much nationally for whatever reason (maybe they have lives outside of disc golf) but are still very high level players. Christian Dietrich is a local hero here in MT, and he won BSF a few years back. He's been hovering around a 1020 rating for most of the last decade, but disc golf is not his full time gig. Christian has won 43.8% of the PDGA-sanctioned events he entered. So beating everyone but Climo on the list I quoted above! An even more extreme example is Joe Rovere; he's at over 50% career win rate! Madness.

 

[Ryan P.]

This is pointless. Until I see peak McBeth vs. peak Climo, I can never decide. Sure, they have better aspects of their game than each other (Climo's roller game and McBeth's mastery of forehand stick out), but they were the best of their eras because of their mental game. Neither one would let anything shake him. I'd love to see them go back and forth without being rattled at all. "Oh, you made a 70' putt for birdie? who cares, I'm parking my drive."

so they are 1 and 2 in some order.

3 and 4 are barry and wysocki, for the same reasons but minus the incredible mental focus (although don't get me wrong, they both have amazing focus, just not to the insane level of Climo/McBeth)

I'd agree that 5 is up for debate, but I'd give Doss the edge. If he were still playing, he's probably getting top 10 at most of the majors and continually adding to his legacy. If the current situation sticks around for a few years and someone who'd be in the 6-10 range grabs another few NTs or Majors, then I'd consider bumping them ahead. but for now, it's Doss and his beer.