Category: The Numbers Game

So my picks were a bit off last week. Choi withdrew and well, I won’t go into the rest. It was a great week of golf though, with a couple of big moves made by Chad Campbell and Tim Herron. At least I was right about the number of players that would drop out. Two guys, Ogilvy and Maruyama, were the unfortunate ones.

Now that we have the top 30 I wanted to look a little further into who these players are. Earlier this year I went into great detail about Greens in Regulation (GIR), Putting Average (PA), and other statistics. I wanted to see where the top players stood in each and if the same trends we found earlier still held up. Let’s have a look…

Continue reading “Top 30 – In Numbers”

The chase for the top 30 continues. All the players are scrambling to get into the Tour Championship at the end of the year. They all want to be invited to the party, but we know that most will be on the outside looking in.

Even the PGATour.com is pumping up the action with a section on their website dedicated to the chase. Heck, they even have a corporate sponsor… the popular soft drink company with the red can. I wonder how much that cost. Anyway, they (PGATour.com) are focusing in on 25-45. Here is the list through last week’s tournament:

Continue reading “The Top Thirty”

A bit shorter version of The Numbers Game this week as we had an eventful weekend in Pinehurst. Everyone had a great time, especially the blue team… of which I was a proud member. I thought I’d talk about a few numbers associated with the tournament and add to some of the other reports my fellow staff members have given you already.

Continue reading “The Newport Cup”

The past couple weeks of The Numbers Game has focused on how to rate tour players in four main categories: Power, Accuracy, Short Game and Putting. Last week some formulas were developed that, in my opinion, were well suited to tell us who are the top in these categories.

Well, I’ve run the numbers and made all the calculations. I’ve also thrown in a total to find out who is are the most skilled players. Are there any surprises? Read on and find out.

Continue reading “Skill Rankings, Rating the Pros”

The PGA Tour gave it a first pass, and now I’m going to give it my best shot. Last week we looked at the PGA Tour’s “Skill Ratings” for the members of the Presidents Cup team, and suffice to say I had some issues with how the numbers shook out. This week I’ll put in my two cents on how to rate thes four skills: Accuracy, Power, Short Game, and Putting.

Nothing is going to be perfect. All I’m hoping is that these might evolve over time to become reliable or at the least, believable. Oh, and also you should be able to understand exactly what they mean. Nothing vague. This should be a step up from last week.

Continue reading “Skill Ratings, Part Two”

I’m still a little disturbed. This has nothing to do with last week, but something our editor passed to me recently. Thanks Erik, I appreciate it.

It has to do with a little graph at the PGA Tour’s Presidents Cup player information website. Hopefully you will see what is wrong with it. If not, well, even if you can read my take and agree or disagree.

Continue reading “Skill Ratings”

Lists. We love to look at them. People talk about them, but simply being on a list doesn’t verify anything as truth or fact. After all, it’s just a list.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop me from getting worked up when I see one.

Golf Digest’s list of top 100 courses has been published for a number of years now and it has always irritated me. Why? Because according to them, the top two states with the best golf courses are New York and California. Grrr…

Continue reading “Best State in the States”

The Presidents Cup: “The Tournament That Isn’t the Ryder Cup.” I think if you looked up the definition in the dictionary, that would be it. The Presidents Cup can’t and probably won’t ever shake that stigma. Even if it does plays second fiddle, the Presidents Cup offers some great golf after most of the season has passed. In The Numbers Game this week I’ll offer some thoughts on the players and what to expect in the biggest match play tournament… not named the Ryder Cup.

Continue reading “Presidents Cup”

Comparing the professional golfer to the amateur golfer is not an easy thing. Not only do we (amateurs) for the most part play on shorter and easier courses, we do not have the stress of competing in front of thousands of people in person and millions more on TV. Also, amateurs do not have to make a living and survive by hitting that damn white ball into what seems to be a shrinking hole.

So what does this have to do with numbers? Well, I thought it would be interesting to see if my stats correlated in the same way the pros did. The results were interesting.

Continue reading “Pro vs Amateur in Numbers”