Category: Thrash Talk

For the past ten years the U.S.Ryder Cup team has been pretty awful. Actually the U.S. team has been bad since 1997. Save a miracle in 1999 the U.S. has won only one other time, 2006 at Valhalla. Seven to two since 1997 and one needed at the time the greatest comeback in history to get the win. One could argue that the miracle was matched by the European team in 2012, but still seven to two borders on domination.

For 2014 the U.S. PGA has tried to switch up the momentum and brought on Tom Watson who was a previous captain to try and change the tied. I am a big fan of trying something different. Going with Tom is a bit against the grain and the U.S. team certainly needs a jolt. It is an interesting situation because the U.S. team is so dominate in the other team event, the Presidents Cup. Nearly undefeated in fact, add to that Freddie Couples excellent captain’s picks for this year and I don’t expect the International team will be able to beat the U.S. team. So it is not just that the U.S. is bad in team events, because if that were true the U.S. would have lost at least one of the Presidents Cups. So what is the reason the U.S. is so bad in the Ryder Cup.

Continue reading “Why the U.S. is Getting Dominated at the Ryder Cup”

Tiger Woods has had a spectacular year by all accounts. Five PGA Tour wins and not a single missed cut, but no major victories. And that hurts, sure, but how much? Well, that’s what I am here to identify.

There’s a relatively simply stat that goes a bit beyond Old Man Par, called “z-score.” Z-score is simply a way of comparing how someone scores to how the rest of the field scored. For instance, during Jim Furyk’s 59 at the BMW Championship, the average score for all players that made the cut that week was 71.086. Z-score compares the player’s score to that average, and uses the standard deviation of the round’s scores to measure just how tough the course was playing on a given day. The number that the relatively simple formula spits out is a representation of how many standard deviations a player’s score was from the course average. Only the scores from players that made the cut are used, otherwise you would not be able to compare Thursday and Friday rounds to weekend rounds. (Players who missed the cut are, by definition, playing worse, and not having their scores in the weekend course averages would made it look like the course was playing much easier.)

A simple explanation about the ramifications of z-score is that despite shooting a 69 on Saturday and a 67 on Sunday at the TOUR Championship, Tiger’s Saturday z-score was actually better because the course played two shots easier on Sunday, and because the field’s standard deviation that day was a bit higher.

Using the tournament leaderboards from Yahoo! Sports (the PGATour.com ones were a bit tougher to import into a spreadsheet), I plotted an entire season’s worth of z-scores. (You can email or PM me for the full spreadsheet if you’d like.) I calculated the z-score for every player for every round, and then picked out the records of the PGA Tour Player of the Year finalists: Tiger Woods, Henrik Stenson, Adam Scott, Matt Kuchar, and Phil Mickelson.

How did they fare statistically? Read on the find out.

Continue reading “Why Tiger Should Win the 2013 PGA Tour Player of the Year Award”

Since 2008, the selection of player of the year has been debated very heavily. It was so easy from 1999 to 2006 to pick Tiger because he was winning at a pace we have never seen before. He would tee it up fifteen times a season, win six times and at least one would be a major. We got so comfortable picking Tiger as the player of the year we now hold each player’s season to those glory years of Tiger.

The 2013 Player of the Year will be quite a debate. At the time of writing this article Tiger has won five PGA Tour events and he may even pick up another one to two during the FedExCup playoffs. Wins at two WGC events in Doral and Akron, and a win at the unofficial fifth major The Players Championship, means at biggest events not designated as majors Tiger was unbelievably dominant. No debate right?

With his win at the Barclay’s last week, Adam Scott says “not so fast my friend.”

Continue reading “The 2013 Player of the Year is…”

In a recent article of Golf Magazine Padraig Harrington made a comment that he felt Rory was more like Phil Mickelson than Tiger Woods. I find this a very interesting comment because Rory is so often compared to Tiger. For a while now many in the golf industry have coroneted him “the next Tiger.”

When Tiger first started having success many in the media were quick to dub Tiger the next Jack Nicklaus. Tiger invited this comparison especially when telling everyone that Jack’s major record of eighteen majors was his personal golfing goal. Sadly for Tiger this now means unless he hits the number of nineteen his career while wildly successful did not meet his own expectations. Tiger is of course very talented but has a work ethic and a mental toughness that may never be matched again. I can say that within my generation is many different sports Tiger has one of the toughest mental dexterities of any athlete in any sport. He made putts, but not just any putts, the toughest putts to make, all the time. He was incredible.

Continue reading “Is Rory McIlroy More like Tiger or Phil?”

The 2013 PGA Championship returns to Rochester New York for “Glory’s Last Shot” the PGA Championship. This years event is now set up to be one of most exciting PGA Championships in recent history. Tiger coming off a seven stroke victory at the WGC-Bridgestone Championship will make him a huge favorite especially with The SandTrap staff. Phil coming off winning the Open Championship just a few weeks earlier means most of the big names will be on their game. There are a bunch of story lines, lets see what the staff expects for the event.

Continue reading “2013 PGA Championship Staff Predictions”