2019 Tour Golf Stats

[iacas]

Golf Stats of the Year: 2019 - 15th Club

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Though the year will historically be defined by one incredible week in April, 2019 featured an enormous array of statistical highlights in…

@jamo has something to add to this one:

[jamo]

6 minutes ago, iacas said:

Golf Stats of the Year: 2019 - 15th Club

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Though the year will historically be defined by one incredible week in April, 2019 featured an enormous array of statistical highlights in…

@jamo has something to add to this one:

It doesn't count because he only played in six PGA Tour events (one of which, the WGC-Match Play, I'm pretty sure doesn't count, though he won) and thus didn't qualify for the official stats leaderboards, but in 2008 Tiger's SG-Total per round was 3.815.

 

That year, in inclusive order, he won the Buick Open at Torrey, won the WGC-Match Play, won at Bay Hill, finished fifth at Doral, won the Tavistock Cup (joking ... though it is true), finished second at the Masters, and then won the U.S. Open. (He also won the Dubai Desert Classic, which also isn't included in the stats since it's a Euro Tour event.)

It's even crazier if you go back to 2007, when (again in order and not skipping any), he won the Bridgestone, won the PGA, skipped the first Playoff event, finished T2 at the Deutsche Bank, won the BMW Championship, and then won the Tour Championship. (Then he went 3-2-0 and won the Presidents Cup and won the Target World Challenge.)

It's insane how good he was over that stretch, without even factoring in the ongoing knee injuries and Hank Haney's constant popsicle anxiety. 

[Golfnutgalen]

There is a stat which is very similar to strokes gained  which goes back quite a bit further all the way to 1983. Here is the tour's definition of both stats:

Stroke Differential to field average: Average strokes per round played that a player was better/worse than the per round field average.

Strokes Gained Total: The per round average of the number of Strokes the player was better or worse than the field average on the same course & event.

So at first glance they seem the same, but there are definitely differences exactly why is unclear to me. Does SG use an additional adjustment for field strength? Here is a list of the best figures in the differential stat. Tiger shows up prominently even without including his 2008 stats

PGA Tour Strokes Differential Field Average 1983-2019

1) 3.84 strokes – Tiger Woods, 2000

2) 3.39 strokes – Tiger Woods, 2006

3) 3.21 strokes – Tiger Woods, 2007

4) 3.04 strokes – Tiger Woods, 2009

5) 3.03 strokes – Tiger Woods, 2002

6) 2.98 strokes – Tiger Woods, 1999

7) 2.82 strokes – Tiger Woods, 2003

😎 2.67 strokes – Tiger Woods, 2005

9) 2.59 strokes – Greg Norman, 1993

10) 2.56 strokes – Vijay Singh, 2003

11) 2.55 strokes – Vijay Singh, 2004

12) 2.50 strokes – Greg Norman, 1990

13) 2.45 strokes – Tiger Woods, 2001

14) 2.41 strokes – Tiger Woods, 2004

15) 2.40 strokes – Jim Furyk, 2006

16) 2.40 strokes – Dustin Johnson, 2018

17) 2.37 strokes – Jack Nicklaus, 1984

18) 2.37 strokes – Greg Norman, 1994

19) 2.36 strokes – Rory McIlroy, 2014

20) 2.27 strokes – Ernie Els, 2004

21) 2.24 strokes – David Duval, 1999

22) 2.24 strokes – Vijay Singh, 2005

23) 2.23 strokes – Mike Weir, 2003

24) 2.23 strokes – Tiger Woods, 2012

25) 2.22 strokes – Fred Couples, 1992

26) 2.22 strokes – Jordan Spieth, 2015

27) 2.21 strokes – Greg Norman, 1995

28) 2.21 strokes –Rory McIlroy, 2019

It seems odd to me that Rory's number and positioning is so different here. I think the main reason is we have 14 years in between which are pre-strokes gained and if we remove those he moves all the way up to 14th. Still, in this stat his numbers rank behind Tiger in 2005, 2004, and 2012 and his own figures in 2014.

 

 

Edited December 26, 2019 by Golfnutgalen

[jamo]

3 hours ago, Golfnutgalen said:

It seems odd to me that Rory's number and positioning is so different here. I think the main reason is we have 14 years in between which are pre-strokes gained and if we remove those he moves all the way up to 14th. Still, in this stat his numbers rank behind Tiger in 2005, 2004, and 2012 and his own figures in 2014.

I’m not positive, but I think stroke differential is, for lack of a better term, a “dumb stat.” I think it’s just the average amount of strokes a player was off the field’s average for a round. Strokes gained tries to calculate out a similar number but uses Shotlink data to get there more granularly.