It’s common knowledge that Tiger Woods has gained a lot of distance with his new large-headed Nike driver. Right? I mean, c’mon, we saw him hit some absolutely huge monsters at Doral, didn’t we?
In the face of statistical analysis, well, that’s not necessarily true. Paul Kedrosky has plugged in the numbers, and here you can see Tiger Woods’ driving statistics in 2000 and 2005 (red dot). While his accuracy has dropped considerably, his yardage hasn’t increased substantially. What’s worse, the rest of the PGA Tour (indicated in 2000 by blue dots and in 2005 by green) has dramatically increased with little overall impact to driving accuracy:
Paul’s site includes an animated version of this graph, and it is well worth checking out.
My only question is this: how much have the unusually wet fairways of 2005 affected Tiger’s driving distance? He’s only switched equipment this year, and the 2000-2004 stats include the dry summer tournaments at which Tiger (and everyone else) gets quite a bit of roll. It hasn’t seemed to affect the other golfers much, but a 10-yard increase in driving distance represents a pretty large leap to the right in the chart presented.
Thanks to former The Sand Trap staff member Tom Goyne for pointing this out.
Original Graphic Credit: © Paul Kedrosky, reconstructed for the purpose of this article.
IMHO the biggest change for TW wasn’t the clubhead. I think the switch from steel to graphite shaft might explain a bit about that chart…