Why can't people count?

by Bill Jempty on Jan 25, 2009 9:14 PM EST

A pet peeve I have is when tournaments proclaim themselves as having their 30th anniversary or some other milestone anniversary when in fact it is their 30th tournament and 29th anniversary. The golf media makes the same dumb mistake. Today's example

The Champions Tour turns the Big 3-0 this season.

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The Champions Tour will play 26 official-money events this season, for a projected total purse of $51.4 million. Its first season was in 1980,

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This year, four past major championship winners become eligible for the Champions Tour by turning 50 years old: Tom Lehman, Bob Tway, Fred Couples and Cory Pavin. Couples will only be able to play twice, since his birthday is Oct. 3, and Pavin won't be able to make his debut until 2010, because his birthday is in November.

Now start counting with me in 1981 which is when the tour was one year old and see what number we have for an age in 2009.

It is 29 not 30. People aren't born one year old and neither are golf tournaments or other sporting events. This is the Champions tour 30th season. If those players started counting their age as 1 the year they were born, they'd already be playing the Champions Tour not still waiting to become eligible. Pavin, Couples, Lehman were all born in 1959.

I wish someone would finally credit Tommy Bolt, Julius Boros, Art Wall, and Roberto DeVicenzo for helping create an interest for Senior golf. Their spectacular playoff at the 1979 Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf is what helped helped spark the Senior Tour.

Am I expecting too much from someone writing about pro golf, when I ask them to know the tour's history or how to count properly?

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Probably :)

People do make that kind of mistake pretty often.

by Ryan Ballengee on Jan 26, 2009 12:02 PM EST reply actions

maybe

Maybe they really mean the 30th time the first Tour event of the year has been played? Whatever. Another media mistake.

Truth has a well-known liberal bias.

by dianemarie on Jan 26, 2009 12:57 PM EST reply actions

Ummm - no - that's not how it works

This isn’t a birthday where you count 1 a year after you’re downloaded.

Anniversaries like this are like years on a calendar – you START counting the year they start. There was no year “0”. The Senior/Champions Tour started in 1980 – so 1980 is year 1 and they have played 28 more seasons since then – making 2009 the 30th season of the Tour.

Guess what – the year 2000 wasn’t the first year of the next century/millenium, either – it was the END of the second millenium. However, thanks to a horrible education system, and a culture that believes marketing and media more than facts, people went nuts over the change from 19 to 20.

"this ball will fit in that fairway"

by courtgolf on Jan 26, 2009 1:52 PM EST reply actions