Is There Such Thing As A Clutch Factor In Golf?

[mdl]

I've always wanted to do a big analysis of golf data using the modern GPS data (same stuff Broadie used for strokes gained, etc.) and a similar framework for shot classification as strokes gained to try to suss out whether there is a clutch factor that you can estimate that looks different from noise.  Of course, I probably won't ever have time to do that the way I'd like, but...

Personally I haven't played enough in competition to really know about myself.  I scored really poorly in my first ever tournament but scored average to slightly above average in all my others (with small sample size), so who knows what that means...

[rkim291968]

I think for PGA Tour and other very talented players clutch is just the absents of choke.  Basically, they are more likely than not to make an outstanding shot at any time so if they make another one with everything on the line they are just playing their normal game.  Choking must certainly be real as nerves can inhibit your normal functions.

In general, I think this is true for other sports.   The only sport that the clutch factor can be reliably measured is baseball where stat is everything.   There are hitters who average significantly higher in RBI situation.  Then again, it could just be a normal variation of the stat.

[dkolo]

I voted no, but for somewhat semantic reasons. I'm basing my suspicions with respect to gold on the research done in baseball that there hasn't been evidence of clutch players. Which is to say that players don't perform better in the clutch than they do overall. They may perform better than others and certainly at any given opportunity, and any player may come through in a clutch moment. However, I don't believe that players can be found to elevate their performance in clutch situations above their baseline performance levels over a significant sample size, which is how I believe the term "clutch" tends to be used.