"The Hole Truth" By Bill Felber

[iacas]

Discuss "The Hole Truth: Determining the Greatest Players in Golf Using Sabermetrics" by Bill Felber here.

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This book makes some promises - or at least hints at them - upon which it doesn't deliver.

The book makes it sound like it's going to compare the players across generations, and does absolutely nothing of the sort.

All the book is - well, 95%+ of it - is a brief history of a number of players (men and women), and then a table and a chart showing their Z-scores for major championships played over a number of years. At the end, there are some charts showing the peak five-year performances and the performances for the "career".

Absolutely no attempt is made to consider the fact that Old Tom Morris played against as few as seven other competitors, while Tiger Woods competed against the best 150 or so players out of millions more golfers in the world.

Furthermore, regular PGA Tour events aren't considered at all (or LPGA Tour events): only major championships.

What a snore. What a let-down.

If you see the book in the store, especially you @turtleback, go ahead and pick it up to look through some of the charts. You'll see what a joke it is when many, many players are listed well above, say, Phil Mickelson, including many women players. I think Phil is 17th, despite having won 40+ times with… five majors in the modern era.

[turtleback]

Who is this guy?  What's his background?  A Google search didn't turn up anything.

Ah, never mind, his name is Bill Felber, not Farber.  Not that a Google search turns up much about him.  Some newspaper guy committing statistical malpractice.  The one Amazon review said he was a local wit, but I think that is only half right.

Seems pretty worthless considering the complete lack of detailed stat breakdowns from the past.  And from what you said and the little bit out there he seems to have no clue about strength of field.

In the unlikely event I find myself in a bookstore I'll glance at it.  I can always use a good laugh.

Edited February 9, 2019 by turtleback

[iacas]

  On 2/9/2019 at 5:44 AM, turtleback said:

Ah, never mind, his name is Bill Felber, not Farber.

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Yeah, I don't know what I was doing there. I saw his name right on the Amazon page, and then typed something else. 😛

[turtleback]

  On 2/9/2019 at 10:05 PM, iacas said:

Yeah, I don't know what I was doing there. I saw his name right on the Amazon page, and then typed something else. 😛

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That's only supposed to happen to guys MY age, LOL.

[Vinsk]

  On 2/9/2019 at 5:44 AM, turtleback said:

Who is this guy?  What's his background?  A Google search didn't turn up anything.

Ah, never mind, his name is Bill Felber, not Farber.  Not that a Google search turns up much about him.  Some newspaper guy committing statistical malpractice.  The one Amazon review said he was a local wit, but I think that is only half right.

Seems pretty worthless considering the complete lack of detailed stat breakdowns from the past.  And from what you said and the little bit out there he seems to have no clue about strength of field.

In the unlikely event I find myself in a bookstore I'll glance at it.  I can always use a good laugh.

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I know it would be an unnecessary task, but out of pure entertainment I (and others I’m sure) would probably thoroughly enjoy a review from you on this book. I’ve read some very entertaining reviews on the low budget horror films I watch on Amazon Prime and often find some very entertaining reading material. 😀

[turtleback]

  On 2/10/2019 at 12:18 AM, Vinsk said:

I know it would be an unnecessary task, but out of pure entertainment I (and others I’m sure) would probably thoroughly enjoy a review from you on this book. I’ve read some very entertaining reviews on the low budget horror films I watch on Amazon Prime and often find some very entertaining reading material. 😀

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I appreciate the kind words, but life is too short, and there are too many good books to read for me to waste my time on dreck like this.