Golf Stats That Matter Most Article

[boogielicious]

From Golf Digest. 
 

The golf stats that matter most on the PGA Tour | Golf World | GolfDigest.com

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We analyzed various areas of the game to see which most directly correlates with tournament...

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Golf, like many sports, is fertile ground for folk wisdom. If you’ve spent time around a course, you’ve heard the expression “drive for show, putt for dough.” McCarthy’s case would cast some doubt on this formulation, but of course the 27-year-old is just one person and it would be a mistake to draw any statistical conclusions from the smallest possible sample size. Right or wrong, though, the “putt for dough” idea is attempting to answer a question of critical importance for players: Which skill matters the most? Which specific aspect of golf has the greatest correlation to sustained success? And which elements are less important than we think?

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• Of the comprehensive strokes-gained numbers, SG/approach the green is the most “important” to overall success. It’s the top stat after money and World Ranking, and it’s even above SG/total, which comes in fourth. That last fact is the least intuitive of the results and probably deserves closer inspection.

• The top six are: SG/approach the green, SG/off-the-tee, scoring average, SG/total, SG/around the green, and SG/tee-to-green. Again, this all stands to reason and functions as good quality control.

• But you might have noticed something missing … where’s putting? Incredibly, SG/putting ranks 64th on the list, exactly at the halfway mark. It’s hard not to think of that number in relation to McCarthy, and while the warning above still has to be observed, it definitely raises some questions about the relative value of putting.

This reinforces the advice that Lowest Score Wins discusses, GIR and nGIR are King and Queen and off the tee is also very important.

[billchao]

Everyone knows the golf stat that matters most on the PGA Tour is majors won 🙃

[iacas]

No surprises, really. The spreadsheet showing how each of the 130 stats fell is here:

ShaneStatsFEC - Google Sheets

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ShaneStatsFEC Stat,Value Official Money,0.283 Official World Golf Ranking,0.255 1,SG: Approach the Green,0.216 2,SG: Off-the-Tee,0.189 3,Scoring Average,0.147 4,SG: Total,0.142 5,SG: Around the...

Regarding this part:

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It’s the top stat after money and World Ranking, and it’s even above SG/total, which comes in fourth. That last fact is the least intuitive of the results and probably deserves closer inspection.

That's simply because the good players will have a good scoring average, but you could also play poorly overall, but get hot twice and win two events, and rank top ten in the FedExCup but low on scoring average (or SG/total).