3Jack's PGA Tour 'Ballstriking Stats' for 2008

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Richie3Jack

Richie3Jack

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I'm a bit of a statistics nut and I work as a data analyst. Over at my blog I decided to come up with a 'ballstriking' statistic which took the following factors:

- Total Driving
- Greens in Regulation
- Proximity to the Hole

I totaled up the rankings in those for each player and then ranked them in ascending order as the 'best ballstriker.' This is for 2008, I thought some people would be interested:

1. John Huston
2. Chad Campbell
3. John Riegger
4. Joe Durant
5. Jeff Gove
6. John Senden
7. Hunter Mahan
8. Kent Jones
9. Robert Allenby
10. Kenny Perry
11. Briny Baird
12. Michael Allen
13. Jay Williamson
14. Heath Slocum
15. Jason Gore
16. Ryan Palmer
17. Chez Reavie
18. Boo Weekley
19. Vijay Singh
20. Steve Marino
21. Harrison Frazar
22. Paul Casey
23. Scott Sterling
24. Zach Johnson
25. Robert Gamez
26. Chris Stroud
27. Woody Austin
28. Tommy Armour III
29. Ryan Armour
30. Billy Mayfair
31. John Merrick
32. D.J. Trahan
33. Gavin Coles
34. Charley Hoffman
35. J.J. Henry
36. Justin Leonard
37. Mark Wilson
38. Ben Crane
39. Rich Beem
40. Scott Verplank
41. Bart Bryant
42. Tom Scherrer
43. Pat Perez
44. Lucas Glover
45. Charlie Wi
46. Steve Elkington
47. Bob Estes
48. Jim Furyk
49. Charles Warren
50. Cameron Beckman
51. Olin Browne
52. Patrick Sheehan
53. Justin Bolli
54. Kevin Streelman
55. Bob Tway
56. Rory Sabbatini
57. Bubba Watson
58. Martin Laird
59. Tommy Gainey
60. Ron Whittaker
61. George McNeill
62. Mathew Goggin
63. Nick Watney
64. Vaughn Taylor
65. Nick O'Hern
66. Bill Haas
67. Y.E. Yang
68. Doug LaBelle II
69. Bo Van Pelt
70. Troy Matteson
71. Ben Curtis
72. Sergio Garcia
73. Jeff Maggert
74. Anthony Kim
75. Brandt Jobe
76. Stewart Cink
77. Shane Bertsch
78. Omar Uresti
79. Kevin Sutherland
80. Fred Couples
81. Robert Garrigus
82. Trevor Immelman
83. Stephen Ames
84. Brian Gay
85. Mark Calcavecchia
86. Ted Purdy
87. David Toms
88. Brian Davis
89. Sean O'Hair
90. John Rollins
91. Kevin Stadler
92. Jim McGovern
93. Davis Love III
94. Todd Demsey
95. Glen Day
96. Steve Allan
97. Mike Weir
98. Dean Wilson
99. Tim Clark
100. Michael Letzig
101. Scott McCarron
102. Joe Ogilvie
103. Jon Mills
104. Alex Cejka
105. Nicholas Thompson
106. Jason Day
107. Rod Pampling
108. Camilo Villegas
109. Lee Janzen
110. Nick Flanagan
111. Will MacKenzie
112. Kenneth Ferrie
113. Steve Flesch
114. Phil Mickelson
115. Frank Lickliter II
116. Tim Wilkinson
117. Geoff Ogilvy
118. Todd Hamilton
119. Charles Howell III
120. Matt Kuchar
121. Padraig Harrington
122. Jonathan Byrd
123. Tim Petrovic
124. Jin Park
125. Brenden Pappas
126. Tom Pernice, Jr.
127. Adam Scott
128. Craig Kanada
129. Ernie Els
130. John Mallinger
131. Paul Goydos
132. Peter Lonard
133. Paul Claxton
134. Tag Ridings
135. Kevin Na
136. Ken Duke
137. Richard S. Johnson
138. Mathias Gronberg
139. Ryan Moore
140. Jerry Kelly
141. K.J. Choi
142. Cliff Kresge
143. Greg Kraft
144. Brad Elder
145. Carlos Franco
146. Marc Turnesa
147. Jeff Quinney
148. Dudley Hart
149. Dustin Johnson
150. Billy Andrade
151. Steve Stricker
152. Brett Quigley
153. Brad Adamonis
154. Mark Hensby
155. Tim Herron
156. Carl Pettersson
157. Corey Pavin
158. Jeff Overton
159. Brandt Snedeker
160. Marco Dawson
161. Alejandro Canizares
162. Chris DiMarco
163. J.B. Holmes
164. Kyle Thompson
165. Stephen Leaney
166. Rocco Mediate
167. Andres Romero
168. Travis Perkins
169. Angel Cabrera
170. James Driscoll
171. Fredrik Jacobson
172. Bob Sowards
173. David Lutterus
174. Stuart Appleby
175. Jason Allred
176. Tom Lehman
177. Cody Freeman
178. Retief Goosen
179. Chris Riley
180. Jimmy Walker
181. Aaron Baddeley
182. Parker McLachlin
183. Ian Poulter
184. J.P. Hayes
185. Matt Jones
186. Ryuji Imada
187. Brett Rumford
188. Richard Johnson
189. Eric Axley
190. Jesper Parnevik
191. Johnson Wagner
192. Daniel Chopra
193. Steve Lowery
194. David Duval
195. Chad Collins
196. Shigeki Maruyama
197. Nathan Green


I'll probably get to 2007 later today.




3JACK
 
Richie3Jack

Richie3Jack

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I'll bet driving accuracy put alot of real good strikers lower than they should be.
Click to expand...

I sort of see your point, although most of the accurate drivers hit the ball very short from what I've seen. And guys like Riegger and Durant, far from being long off the tee, did quite well.

The one flaw I see is that somebody like Sergio is playing in majors and big tournaments which I would imagine would hurt their statistics quite a bit while Kenny Perry avoided the majors (not to say Perry can't stripe the ball, but it does make a difference IMO).

I ran a correlation coefficient on certain stats and how they correlate to stroke average a few months back. Driving accuracy has almost zero correlation to stroke average. The two stats that had the strongest correlation to stroke average were GIR and Putts/GIR.



3JACK
 
self-mastery

self-mastery

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Richie3Jack said:
Driving accuracy has almost zero correlation to stroke average. The two stats that had the strongest correlation to stroke average were GIR and Putts/GIR.



3JACK
Click to expand...

So Jack was right when he said that children should learn how to hit hard before they learned technique. Hit it 290+, get good with your short irons/wedges, and then learn how to putt. Sounds good to me.
 
Richie3Jack

Richie3Jack

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Brian Manzella said:
Richie,

I disagree with the way the list was put together.

I will explain in my next post.
Click to expand...

Please do. When compiling the list I couldn't help but feel that *something* was missing and obvious there's some flaws with the formula in general. Tends to happen with statistics.



3JACK
 
vjsinger

vjsinger

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self-mastery said:
So Jack was right when he said that children should learn how to hit hard before they learned technique. Hit it 290+, get good with your short irons/wedges, and then learn how to putt. Sounds good to me.
Click to expand...

If he did say that..don't know if he did or not. Yeah, I'd say he had something there. Isn't this how golf is played nowadays..Kill it find it and hit a wedge. Not only golf, but all sports..It's all about POWER. That's what I'm trying to learn now..Hit it hard and then learn to control it later. Maybe Nicklaus saw how golf on the golf channel was being taught..some call it position golf. I don't understand the thinking on this...I can't control what is happening in the downswing...so why do people teach downswing positions??? Its like trying to teach a kid a jump shot and telling him Exactly where to put his wrist,legs,blah,blah. Im rambling,too much tea tonight, Ill shut up now. Sorry.
 
self-mastery

self-mastery

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vjsinger said:
If he did say that..don't know if he did or not. Yeah, I'd say he had something there. Isn't this how golf is played nowadays..Kill it find it and hit a wedge. Not only golf, but all sports..It's all about POWER. That's what I'm trying to learn now..Hit it hard and then learn to control it later. Maybe Nicklaus saw how golf on the golf channel was being taught..some call it position golf. I don't understand the thinking on this...I can't control what is happening in the downswing...so why do people teach downswing positions??? Its like trying to teach a kid a jump shot and telling him Exactly where to put his wrist,legs,blah,blah. Im rambling,too much tea tonight, Ill shut up now. Sorry.
Click to expand...

I added everything 290+ onward, but everything before that was said by Jack.
 
Richie3Jack

Richie3Jack

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self-mastery said:
So Jack was right when he said that children should learn how to hit hard before they learned technique. Hit it 290+, get good with your short irons/wedges, and then learn how to putt. Sounds good to me.
Click to expand...

Actually driving distance had practically zero correlation to stroke average as well. I did the correlations awhile ago, the 2008 season wasn't even finished. I'll do them again and post them up soon.



3JACK
 
mjstrong

mjstrong

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Hehe, I remember "somebody" suggesting that Huston was a solid player due to his putting...

Interesting work 3JACK. If Brian doesn't exactly agree, maybe you could offer him the same list, but with a different weight assigned to each category...
 
Richie3Jack

Richie3Jack

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mjstrong said:
Hehe, I remember "somebody" suggesting that Huston was a solid player due to his putting...
Click to expand...

You got me there. Although Huston was an unbelievable putter back in the day. Surprising that he hasn't won more on tour. He's obviously very talented.



3JACK
 
M

mb6606

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The last time I looked # of birdies per Par 5 was the best match to the top players (not including adjusted scoring average).
 
Richie3Jack

Richie3Jack

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mb6606 said:
The last time I looked # of birdies per Par 5 was the best match to the top players (not including adjusted scoring average).
Click to expand...

I just ran some correlation coefficient analysis on par 5's and scoring average.

For those who don't understand, a correlation coefficient is a statistical measure that tries to measure the correlation between 2 items. A correlation coefficient ranges from -1.0 to +1.0

The closer the number is to +1.0 that means there's a stronger direct correlation. For instance, if we owned a store and wanted to find out the correlation between outdoor temperature and sodas sold and the correlation coefficient was +1.0 that would mean that the higher the temperature, the more soda was sold.

OTOH, if the number is closer to -1.0 that means there's a indirect correlation. So if we wanted to figure out the correlation between outdoor temperature and hot soup sold and came up with a coefficient of -1.0, that would mean that the lower the temperature, the more soup sold (an indirect correlation).

And of course, the closer the number to 0, means that there's no correlation either way.

Anyway in 2008 on the Tour, the correlation between par 5 performance and stroke average was +0.65 which is a pretty good direct correlation. And the correlation between par 5 performance and adjusted stroke average was still a fairly strong +0.59.

I haven't looked at other hole performances and plenty of other stats, but hopefully I'll get some time to do so.



3JACK
 
birdie_man

birdie_man

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Brian I presume you were gonna say what you thought were the most important stats?

BTW I agree with SM. Driver, wedge, putter. The skills you learn overlap into other clubs.
 
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