The Statistician (2002)

51, Part 2, pp. 215228

Exploratory analysis of European Professional Golf

Association statistics
Robert Ketzscher and Trevor J. Ringrose
Cranfield University, Shrivenham, UK
[Received May 2001. Revised December 2001]
Summary. Various summary statistics collected by the Professional Golf Association European
tour for 19982001 are investigated, in particular to see how well these predict golfing success.
The paper tries to avoid predicting something by itself, as previous papers have in effect done,
concentrating on key parts of the game only. We conclude that the game of golf is too complex
to characterize by the relatively small set of variables that are currently used, and we suggest
further quantities which, if measured, would allow a more informative analysis.
Keywords: Correlation; European Professional Golf Association; Golf; Linear regression

1. Introduction
The Professional Golf Association (PGA) in both Europe and the USA collect summary statistics for each of the players on their respective tours. A few papers (see Section 3) have looked at
the US PGA data for a small number of years, but surprisingly little has been done with these
data, despite their popularity with golf journalists, especially in the USA. These previous papers
have concentrated on trying to assess the importance of various elements of playing style and
ability in predicting golfing success, and we largely follow this approach.
We look at the European tour performance data for the years 19982001. Section 2 describes
the data collected, Section 3 reviews previous work, Section 4 introduces two new variables
derived from the existing data, Sections 5 and 6 present some simple analyses and discussions
of the data and Section 7 discusses possible future work.
We now discuss why using data for every round of each player should be representative of
a players true abilities and hence lead to comparatively more useful results than, for example,
analysing the match statistics of all football games over a season. Essentially it is because the
nature of the game and its reward system means that a player has an incentive to try his best
with every shot, whereas in many sports the result of a game or championship may be clear long
before the end, so players or teams may not try as hard as normal.
With the cut-off system players who are far adrift are not allowed to participate in the final
two rounds. In football a team which is 40 down at half-time will often have given up and
not play to their true potential in the second half. Hence data for the second half may not be
representative of the teams true abilities. In golf the cut-off prevents this. This does not imply
biased sampling; it ensures that only competitive data are being used.
Prize-money is available for everybody who exceeds the cut-off and is staggered depending
on the final total score. If a player is 10 shots off the lead with nine holes to play it would be
Address for correspondence: Robert Ketzscher, Applied Mathematics and Operational Research Group, Cranfield University, Royal Military College of Science, Shrivenham, Swindon, SN6 8LA, UK.
E-mail: R.Ketzscher@rmcs.cranfield.ac.uk
2002 Royal Statistical Society

00390526/02/51215

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R. Ketzscher and T. J. Ringrose

extremely unlikely for him to win the tournament. However, by maintaining this margin or even
decreasing it over the last nine holes he will still ensure a respectable payment, which depends
on every single shot and putt that he takes. If in a football match a team is winning or losing by
three clear goals with 10 minutes to go, the remaining 10 minutes will not be as representative
as earlier parts of this game.
Finally, in league games of most sports, frequently the league champions and/or relegated
teams are already known before the last game(s). Hence these teams may not try as hard as
teams who have something to play for. In golf each tournament presents a new chance for the
golfer to do well, all players starting from zero each time.
Playing in a league system, teams must play their matches at a given frequency. This is sometimes worsened by progress in various cup competitions and the resulting extra matches. Consequently teams must play even when they are not at their best. Golf in contrast is different.
Generally players participate in only about 60% of tournaments on the PGA European tour,
which enables them to select tournaments and courses in which they hope to do well. This also
enables them to withdraw from tournaments because of injuries. In team league games such as
football, injuries to key players imply that an understrength team is fielded.
These comments only apply to medal play, where players compete as individuals and their
finishing position is determined by the total number of shots taken. As pointed out by Larkey
(1998), there are problems in using the data from other types of competition.
2. Variables
The standard figures collected from the PGA European tour and the PGA tour are driving
distance and accuracy, greens in regulation GIR, total putts, putts per GIR and sand saves.
These are all usually presented as averages or percentages for each player over a whole season
and are assumed to be so throughout Sections 25. In Section 6 we discuss less aggregated data,
where the variables are recorded for each player for each round. We now define and discuss these
variables in greater detail.
A drive is a tee shot taken on a par 4 or 5 hole. Generally the purpose of this shot is to achieve
a good position from which a player will reach the green with one or two more shots. Each
drive has two main components. Firstly the driving distance DrivDist is how far the ball has
travelled from the tee to its final resting position. Unlike the other figures, this is based on a
sample of two holes per round, specifically those where it is thought that players will try to hit
the drive as far as possible. The Tournament Director chooses two holes where drivers will be
used, which face different directions (to negate the effect of wind), and with few contour changes
(so that measurement is easier). The distance is taken from course measurements and does not
(at present) use the global positioning system.
Secondly, the driving accuracy DrivAccu is the percentage of drives which finish on the
fairway or on the green, which is the ideal finishing position. Less favourables outcomes are
bunkers (i.e. in sand), the rough on either side of the fairway or even worse among trees, water
hazards or out of bounds. This includes the results of all tee shots on all holes of par 4 or 5,
not just those used to calculate DrivDist.
The variable greens in regulation GIR represents the percentage of holes in which the player
reached the green in not more than the expected number of shots, i.e. in n 2 shots on a par
n. However, players can reach par 5 holes in two shots rather than the regulation three shots
and this difference is not incorporated in GIR. However, because in such cases the second shot
is from a greater distance, even if it finds the green it usually results in a lengthy first putt. The
potential situation after this putt has been taken (i.e. the regulation third shot) is similar to the

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217

case when the green is reached with the third shot by means of a short iron shot, so that not
being able to distinguish whether par 5 holes are reached in two or three shots does not seem
crucial. Similarly, if the green is not hit in regulation there is no distinction between n 1, n,
n + 1 etc. shots.
The variable average putts AvPutts is simply the average number of putts per round. As noted
above, the green in a par n should be reached in n 2 shots. This leaves two putts to complete
the hole to par. Each hole always has such an allocation of two putts, so consequently players
are expected to take 36 putts each round.
The variable putts per GIR PPGIR is the average number of putts per hole, for all holes where
the green was hit in regulation. This implies that the previous stroke was usually an approach
shot from distance, so this variable should characterize putting skill slightly better than AvPutts,
which includes more cases resulting from short chips onto the green, where resulting putts are
generally shorter.
The variable sand saves SandSave represents the percentage of holes where the player achieved
par out of all the holes where he found a bunker. Bunkers are placed on courses to complicate
the play of the hole significantly without automatically implying penalty strokes, as opposed to
water hazards.
There are various ways to compare the golfing success of players. The money list compares
players on the total amount of prize-money won in each season. Prize-money is staggered
depending on the finishing position in a tournament. The actual amounts differ from tournament
to tournament. All the other variables are unweighted averages over the whole season and hence
the money list does not seem to be an appropriate comparison.
Another possible way is to compare the average finishing positions. Although this seems
a much better unweighted indicator, it still does not relate to the actual golf shots. A player
finishing runner-up six shots adrift is treated the same as a player losing in a play-off.
Therefore it seems that the best indicator is the stroke average StrAver, the average number of strokes taken per round over the entire season. This is also not perfect since some
courses have a higher par, or higher difficulty with the same par, than others and players
enter different combinations of tournaments, but this effect should be small over a whole season.
We define a further variable, average non-green shots NonGreen, to be the difference between
the stroke average and average putts, since this is an exact measure of the number of shots that a
player takes to reach the green, whereas GIR is less exact for the reasons noted above. However,
the one advantage of GIR over NonGreen is that it accounts for the differences in course lengths
(pars).
The same course may differ in difficulty between different times of the day in the same tournament, potentially affecting all the above variables, so again we hope that, over a full season,
this will average out.
3. Literature review and comments
It seems that so far there have been only a few simple investigations of the standard variables
described in the previous section.
Belkin et al. (1994) reviewed some earlier work and calculated means, standard deviations
and correlations for the above variables for the years 19861988 for the US PGA tour. For each
year significant (Pearson) correlations were found (in the obvious directions) between the stroke
average and each of the other variables, apart from drive distance in 1986. Regression with stroke
average as the response and the other variables as explanatory gave similar results, with drive

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accuracy in 1986 and sand saves in 1987 and 1988 the only non-significant terms. The variables
together had R2 -values of at least 0.8 in each year. For those three years there was a trend
for the coefficients for drive distance and drive accuracy to increase over time, which Belkin
et al. (1994) ascribed to changes in location of the pin on greens making driving relatively more
important. Engelhardt (1995) looked at this further, using 1993 and 1994 US PGA data. It is
not entirely clear what Engelhardt (1995) was attempting, but it claims to calculate (Spearman)
correlations between money rank with driving and GIR ranks. However, since only the top
10 money earners were used, this does not seem to make sense. The claim was made, though,
that driving had become more important than GIR over time. Engelhardt (1997, 1999) used
MannWhitneys U-test to assess the significance of the difference between the above variables
for the top 10 and bottom 10 earners on the PGA tour in 1995. Despite such post hoc testing
only the two driving variables gave significant results. A similar look at the PGA European tour
for 1998 by Jimenez and Fierro-Hernandez (1999) found drive distance, GIR and sand saves to
be significant.
Those references seemed to assume that GIR represents a players ability in iron play whereas
AvPutts represents their putting ability. However, this is clearly not true. A players GIR is
a function of their driving and iron play, since the better their driving the easier their iron
shots will be and the more likely they are to reach the green quickly. Similarly, the better their
driving and iron play the closer their first putt is likely to be to the hole. Anecdotally, we
suspect that the players with the lowest AvPutts may be those with the best short iron games.
Alternatively, players who aggressively aim for the pin rather than for the centre of the green
will often leave short putts but will often miss the green and leave short chips (sometimes
bunker shots) onto it, both cases tending to lead to low AvPutts. In contrast, a very good
putter may play conservatively, aiming for the centre of the green and leaving long putts, thus
concentrating on his strength but resulting in a high AvPutts. Hence, an aggressive player
with good short iron skills may have a lower AvPutts than a conservative player who putts
well.
This is all speculation, but it illustrates that the relationship between the numbers collected
and players abilities is not as straightforward as has been assumed, since on any hole every shot
has an effect on every subsequent shot. Drive distance and drive accuracy describe a players
ability at tee shots on par 4 and 5 holes, but the other variables are mixtures of players abilities
with woods, long and short irons and (for AvPutts) the putter.
Previous papers have seemed to regard the relationship between these variables and stroke
average as a genuine finding, but surely it is hardly surprising. By definition the stroke average
is the sum of AvPutts and NonGreen, so since GIR is just a recoding of the latter it is hardly
surprising that the stroke average is predicted very well by a regression model including AvPutts
and GIR. If NonGreen were used instead of GIR then the prediction would of course be exact.
The same comments apply to money earned as a response, since this can be regarded as a
recoding of stroke average.
Hence, rather than just trying to predict the stroke average by using components of itself, the
present paper attempts to predict it by using other quantities. This in turn leads to a consideration
of other variables which would need to be collected to achieve genuine insight into how different
abilities and styles relate to the stroke average.
4. New variables
It will be interesting to compare the standard figure PPGIR, the average number of putts taken
on holes where the green was reached in regulation (n 2 shots or fewer for a par n hole) with a

Exploratory Analysis of Golf Statistics

219

new figure PPNIR, the average number of putts taken on holes where the green was not reached
in regulation. This can be calculated from the existing data as follows:
PPNIR =
=

total putts for greens not hit in regulation

number of greens not hit in regulation
AvPutts 18.GIR=100/PPGIR
:
18.1 GIR=100/

Fig. 1 shows plots of PPGIR against PPNIR for the 2000 season (plots for other years are
very similar), with the line of equality shown. For all golfers and seasons PPGIR is much larger
than PPNIR, so if a player finds the green in regulation he will on average take more putts than
if he does not. This can be explained by the fact that, at the professional level, even if the green
is missed by the approach shot the ball will still often be fairly close to the green, so the next
shot is usually reasonably short (e.g. a chip or pitch). Hence in this case the first putt will be
from closer to the pin than if the green had been reached with the, often quite long, approach
shot.
If the values of PPGIR and PPNIR are reasonably close, we could assume that, if a player
finds a green in regulation, he is quite close to the pin, i.e. not much further than if he had
chipped on. Hence the greens hit in regulation are hit very well. This could be interpreted as a
measure of aggression, i.e. the player risks not hitting the green at all, but when he does the shot
is close to the hole. Hence we tentatively define Aggression Aggr as
Aggr =

PPNIR
:
PPGIR

However, in Fig. 2 we see that Aggr depends primarily on PPNIR and is positively correlated
with both its numerator and its denominator (again, plots for other years are very similar).
Hence another interpretation is that high values represent players who take almost as many
putts when not reaching a green in regulation as when they do. This might be because their
earlier drive or fairway shots have gone badly wrong so their approach shot onto the green
started from almost as far away as a normal GIR approach shot would have done.

Fig. 1. PPGIR versus PPNIR

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R. Ketzscher and T. J. Ringrose

Fig. 2. Aggr versus (a) PPGIR (Pearson correlation r = 0.224) and (b) PPNIR (Pearson correlation r = 0.825)

Another variable which may lead to new insight is course management Man, defined as
Man = 1

sand shots per round

:
stroke average total putts 18

This is the percentage of shots which were not taken from bunkers, but which potentially could
have been. We may find that players overcome disadvantages in skill, such as poor accuracy or
bunker play, by choosing routes to greens which avoid bunkers.
5. Per-season results for 19982001
We looked at data available for the European tour spanning 4 years from 1998 until 2001
(copyright is held by the European PGA). These data are averages over a full season of the
variables described in Section 2, with the exception of 2001 where it covers only the period until
the Omega European Masters, consequently leaving out the last nine scheduled events. The
summary statistics are shown in Table 1.
From this we see that most variables vary little between seasons. The driving distance is
increasing with time, which can be attributed to the development of both balls and clubs. The
average number of putts is also decreasing slightly, which may be because the quality of the
greens is improving (Nick Metcalf, personal communication). Apart from this, all seems to be
random variation. Note that, contrary to the notional 36 putts per round, implying 36 putts
and 36 non-green shots on a par 72 course, in reality these top players average 30 putts and 42
non-green shots.
Looking at histograms of variables, such as the stroke averages as shown in Fig. 3, we find
that the distributions are reasonably symmetric, albeit with slightly longer tails to the right.
However, for the 2000 season there are a few players with outlying values. For example Derrick
Cooper had a stroke average of 77.32 shots, nearly two shots worse than the second worst player,
whereas Seve Ballesteross driving accuracy of 32.0% was 16.8% lower than the second worst
player in that category.
From the discussion in Section 3, DrivDist and DrivAccu are the only true input variables
recorded whereas we regard StrAver as the best overall output measure. However, we can also
view AvPutts, NonGreen and/or GIR as (component) outputs, which seems more sensible than
viewing them as inputs as in earlier references.

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221

Table 1. Summary data for all variables

Variable

Unit

Results for the following years:

1998, n = 169

StrAver
NonGreen
AvPutts
DrivAccu
DrivDist
GIR
PPGIR
PPNIR
SandSave
Aggr
Man

shots
shots
shots
%
yards
%
putts
putts
%
%
%

1999, n = 176

2000, n = 181

2001, n = 184

Mean

Standard
deviation

Mean

Standard
deviation

Mean

Standard
deviation

Mean

Standard
deviation

72.24
42.14
30.10
63.00
267.3
66.57
1.81
1.40
52.61
83.62
94.90

1.01
0.98
0.67
6.03
7.37
4.05
0.03
0.06
9.27
2.31
1.21

72.28
42.24
30.04
64.15
269.8
67.00
1.81
1.39
53.22
82.98
94.42

1.02
1.05
0.73
6.28
7.35
4.44
0.03
0.06
8.42
2.26
1.15

72.29
42.35
29.94
62.32
273.5
65.82
1.81
1.38
52.09
83.10
94.07

1.04
1.10
0.76
6.29
7.21
4.24
0.03
0.06
8.56
2.06
0.96

71.71
42.06
29.65
63.00
280.3
66.49
1.65
1.36
53.35
82.29
94.94

0.90
1.04
0.74
5.81
7.65
4.14
0.05
0.06
9.21
2.26
1.09

It is interesting to examine the breakdown of StrAver into AvPutts and NonGreen, and
Table 2 shows the variances and covariances. The negative covariance between AvPutts and
NonGreen is not surprising, since certain styles of play may increase one and decrease the
other, whereas wood or iron and putt shots are so different that it is unlikely that the best (of
the best) players in each category will contain many names in common. The variance of StrAver
can be decomposed into the sum of its covariances with each of the other two, showing that in
this sense NonGreen accounts for 34 times more of the total variability than AvPutts does. It
is noticeable that from 1999 onwards the variance of NonGreen was larger than that of StrAver.
The variances are rather lower for 2001, though this may be an artefact of the absence of the
last nine tournaments.
Alternatively, results of weighted (by number of rounds played) linear regression with StrAver
as the response, given in Tables 3 and 4, show that NonGreen produces much larger R2 -values
than AvPutts when predicting SrtAver, though in both cases the R2 -values decrease over time.
This all suggests that, on the PGA European tour at least, off-green shots are the more
important component of overall success.
We note here that all plots of variables and residuals considered were well behaved, so Pearson
correlations and linear regression are appropriate throughout this section.

Fig. 3. Histograms of stroke averages for (a) 1998, (b) 1999, (c) 2000 and (d) 2001

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R. Ketzscher and T. J. Ringrose

Table 2. Variances and covariances for StrAver, AvPutts
and NonGreen
Variable

Year

StrAver

AvPutts

NonGreen

StrAver

1998
1999
2000
2001
1998
1999
2000
2001
1998
1999
2000
2001

1.0119
1.0315
1.0844
0.81561
0.2577
0.2301
0.2259
0.1476
0.7541
0.8014
0.8585
0.6680

0.4579
0.5370
0.5722
0.5538
0.2002
0.3069
0.3463
0.4062

0.9544
1.1083
1.2048
1.0742

AvPutts

NonGreen

Table 3. Coefficients for weighted regression of

StrAver on NonGreen
Year

NonGreen

Constant

R2 (%)

1998
1999
2000
2001

0.755
0.702
0.679
0.615

40.4
42.6
43.5
45.8

57.6
55.2
53.4
50.3

Table 4. Coefficients for weighted regression of

StrAver on AvPutts
Year

AvPutts

Constant

R2 (%)

1998
1999
2000
2001

0.489
0.390
0.366
0.261

57.5
60.4
61.2
63.9

11.6
8.3
7.9
4.7

Table 5 shows that GIR and NonGreen are very strongly related, as expected. Players counting
their putts who also count their GIR-value are gaining nothing, since they must keep track of
the score anyway, so they could just count the number of putts and deduce the number of nongreen shots. GIR itself does not store any extra information, since different course par values
can be easily incorporated into a players non-green shots total by using n 36 as the par for
off-green shots on a par n course. Though GIR is a nice summary statistic for journalists, it has
no real analytic value.
From Table 6 we can see that both DrivAccu and DrivDist are useful predictors for NonGreen,
with the driving accuracy coefficients remaining approximately the same over time. The decrease
in the coefficient for driving distance is not as severe since the actual distance values increase

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223

Table 5. Coefficients for weighted regression of

GIR on NonGreen
Year

NonGreen

Constant

R2 (%)

1998
1999
2000
2001

4.001
4.082
3.842
3.769

235.1
239.4
228.5
225.0

91.9
92.0
90.3
88.9

as noted in Table 1. Despite the fact that, even together, the two variables are a fairly crude
measure of driving ability, R2 is moderately high in all cases. This suggests that either drives
have a large effect on subsequent shots or that good drivers tend to be good iron players. From
Table 6 we can estimate a relationship between accuracy and distance. For example for 1999 we
have
NonGreen = 67:45 0:1 DrivAccu 0:07 DrivDist:
Very approximately, a difference of 10 yards in driving distance is equivalent to a difference of
7% in driving accuracy. However, an extreme example where DrivAccu seems to be far more
important than DrivDist is the performance of the Swedish golfer Pierre Fulke. In 1999 his
driving accuracy was an excellent 76.6% which together with a rather mediocre driving distance
of 256.8 yards resulted in taking an average of 41.42 off-green shots. In the following season of
2000, he improved his driving distance to 270.4 yards, while losing 1% of accuracy (down to
75.6%), which meant that his average NonGreen still increased to 42.01.
It is of interest to see whether SandSave and Man are related, in particular whether there
is any suggestion that players who go into bunkers more often are better at saving par from
them. The correlation between these two variables decreased from 0.31 (1998) to 0.21 (1999)
to 0.09 (2000), from clear significance to clear non-significance. However, it then increases to
0.21 (2001), illustrating the pitfalls of trying to infer temporal changes with few time points.
Hence it is not clear that there is a relationship, but if there is then it appears to be positive, so
players who avoid bunkers better also escape from them better. The picture is similar for the
correlations of Man with other variables in different years, with a few moderately large (and
hence significant) values, but this is probably just a consequence of the fact that we are data
trawling.
Table 7 summarizes stepwise weighted (by number of rounds) regressions of StrAver on
the other variables defined above, DrivAccu, DrivDist, Aggr, Man and SandSave, though not
AvPutts, NonGreen or GIR for the reasons outlined earlier. In each case, the best model, under
Table 6. Coefficients for weighted regression of nongreen shots on driving accuracy and distance
Year

DrivAccu

DrivDist

Constant

R2 (%)

1998
1999
2000
2001

0.1094
0.0994
0.0986
0.1080

0.0706
0.0699
0.0614
0.0451

67.89
67.45
65.20
61.45

49.1
42.4
36.8
42.1

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R. Ketzscher and T. J. Ringrose

Table 7. Coefficients for weighted regression of stroke average
Year

DrivAccu

DrivDist

Aggr

Constant

R2 (%)

1998
1999
2000
2001

0.0473
0.0342
0.0491
0.0377

0.0471
0.0342
0.0410
0.0320

0.23753
0.26360
0.24201
0.19345

67.909
61.786
67.409
67.115

52.0
49.0
50.0
41.3

the usual F -test criteria, is that containing just DrivDist, DrivAccu and Aggr, whereas Man
and SandSave were clearly non-significant. In each case this accounted for over 40% of the total
variation in StrAver, with Aggr clearly the best single predictor.
The main feature of these results is that Aggr seems to be the most important factor (of those
considered). Hence, if the interpretation of this ratio as aggression is valid, this suggests that
players who try ambitious approach shots are penalized and score higher on average than safety
first players.
6. Per-round results for 2001
The data investigated in Section 5 are clearly highly aggregated, being averages over a full season,
and this may mask interesting features. Therefore in this section we consider data for the 2001
season on a per-round basis, so that each variable is recorded for each player for each round.
We have these data only for 2001, and for some tournaments in this season the full per-round
data are not available, so in this section we use only the 25 tournaments for which data on all
rounds are available.
For these data the meanings are slightly different. For example, the per-season data can show
that a player of middling ability in all variables measured will have middling results on average,
whereas the per-round data may show whether his best performances have been those where he
has driven most accurately. Similarly, if we had a genuine measure of putting ability, we could
see whether his best performances were those where he putted best.
We now perform analyses similar to those in Section 5, comparing the results and usefulness
of per-season and per-round data. Previously, treating StrAver over a season as normally distributed seemed reasonable, and all the model checking in Section 5 reinforced this. However,
the score on a single round is clearly not normally distributed. The distribution tends to have
a longer tail to the right since it is easier to drop large numbers of shots than to gain them.
However, there is no standard discrete distribution which appears to be appropriate, in particular not the Poisson, which is also nearly symmetric and constrains the mean and variance to
be equal. Hence we appeal to the central limit theorem, using the fact that the score is a sum of
individual shots, and use normal-based regression as before, albeit with more caution. In some
of the analyses performed, the residual plots showed that the normal distribution assumption
was clearly invalid, but in those reported here there was some indication of non-normality but
nothing serious. Hence, since in most cases the F -tests were so unequivocal, this should not
materially affect the conclusions reached below. As an aside, finding an appropriate distributional form for the number of shots per round is an interesting question for the future.
Earlier we noted that, although different courses and conditions will have an effect on the
scores for each round, these differences should be less significant when considering seasonal
averages (i.e. StrAver). However, for analysing round-by-round data, this is clearly not the case.

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225

Table 8. Variances and covariances for round score,

AvPutts and NonGreen for individual rounds
Variable
Round score
AvPutts
NonGreen

Round score

AvPutts

NonGreen

10.0217
3.4515
6.5702

6.5538
3.1022

9.6724

Hence Tournament is included as a factor (with 25 levels), in all regression models, to correct for
the fact that different courses have different par values and competitions will have been played
in different conditions. For a single year this is equivalent to the course used, though with data
for multiple years tournament would be nested within a variable Course.
Table 8 shows the decomposition of the variance of round score, similarly to Table 2. This
shows that, for these per-round data, putts contribute more to the overall variation than with
per-season data.
Tables 911 give results for the regression of round score on NonGreeen and AvPutts separately, similarly to the analysis given in Tables 3 and 4. For NonGreen the results are similar,
but for AvPutts the prediction is much better, and the coefficient larger, for the per-round case.
Combined with the conclusions in Section 5, this suggests that, whereas over a season a players
NonGreen value is a much better predictor of his overall success than his AvPutts value, for an
individual round this difference is less pronounced (at least in the 2001 season).
Table 12 can be compared with Table 6 and we see that both coefficients and the R2 -value are
rather lower in the per-round case. This is perhaps surprising, especially in comparison with the
results above and below.
Table 9. Analysis-of-variance table for regression of round score on
NonGreen with Tournament as a factor
Source
NonGreen
Tournament
Residual
Total

Degrees of freedom

Sum of squares

1
24
8276
8301

31494.2
2725.0
43418.4
83189.9

6003.12
21.64

Table 10. Analysis-of-variance table for regression of round score

on AvPutts with Tournament as a factor
Source
AvPutts
Tournament
Residual
Total

Degrees of freedom

Sum of squares

1
24
8276
8301

15931.5
9119.8
58981.1
83189.9

2235.45
53.32

226

R. Ketzscher and T. J. Ringrose

Table 11. Coefficients for regression of round
score on NonGreen and AvPutts separately with
Tournament as a factor
Variable
NonGreen
AvPutts

Coefficient

Constant

R2 (%)

0.677
0.561

43.3
55.0

47.8
29.1

Table 12. Analysis-of-variance table for regression of non-green

shots on driving accuracy and distance
Source
DrivAccu
DrivDist
Tournament
Residual
Total

Degrees of freedom

Sum of squares

1
1
24
8275
8301

7067.62
1168.04
10480.62
60327.41
80290.54

969.45
160.22
59.90

DrivAccu, 0.0626; DrivDist, 0.0253; constant, 53.04; R2 , 24.9%.

Finally, we regress round score on DrivAccu, DrivDist, Aggr and Man. The variable SandSave
is not very meaningful on a per-round basis (the denominator is often zero) and so was omitted.
In addition to Tournament, we now include Round number (four levels) and Player (184 levels)
as factors. The latter attempts to assess how much of the overall variation in scores can be
explained simply by the identity of the players. The analysis-of-variance table and coefficients
of the covariates are given in Table 13, whereas the coefficients of the factors are omitted for
obvious reasons. Of the terms reported, the interaction between Tournament and DrivAccu
is clearly non-significant, the effect of Round is equivocal (given the imperfect assumption of
normality) and all the other terms are clearly significant. Other interaction terms not reported
were either non-significant or were considered inappropriate (for example an interaction between
Player and Tournament would not be informative, given the objectives of the analysis).
The main differences between these results and those in Table 7 are that all (covariate) coefficients except that for DrivDist have increased, and that Man is now clearly significant.
The difference between the effects of DrivAccu and DrivDist in the per-year and the perround cases are interesting. For DrivAccu the relationship appears stronger in the per-round
case, since in a particular round consistently finding, or failing to find, the fairway from the tee is
a reasonably good predictor of the round score. However, when DrivAccu and round score are
averaged over the season, some of the strength of this relationship is lost, since all players have
good and bad rounds. Similar comments apply to Aggr and Man. For DrivDist, in contrast, the
value for each round is based on only two observations, so this has much less predictive value.
Averaging DrivDist over a season may indeed be preferable, since this then makes it a more
reliable measure of a players driving power.
The factor Round, though borderline significant, shows that if the effect is genuine then it is
due to scores being higher in the fourth round (possibly because of more difficult pin positions)
and much higher in the first round (possibly because of lesser familiarity with the course). Not
surprisingly, the factor Player is significant, but like all the other terms it still only explains

Exploratory Analysis of Golf Statistics

227

Table 13. Analysis-of-variance table and coefficients of covariates for regression of round score
Source
DrivAccu
DrivDist
Aggr
Man
Tournament
Round
Player
Tournament.DrivAccu
Tournament.DrivDist
Tournament.Man
Tournament.Aggr
Residual
Total

Degrees of freedom

Sum of squares

Coefficient

Standard error

1
1
1
1
24
3
183
24
24
24
24
7945
8255

2900.20
506.57
1202.69
339.23
354.50
75.55
5252.91
214.29
562.05
424.14
801.32
59177.86
82613.54

389.37
68.01
161.47
45.54
1.98
3.38
3.85
1.20
3.14
2.37
4.48

0.0463
0.0220
2.43
5.16

0.00235
0.00267
0.1914
0.7645

a small proportion of the variability, probably because it is rare in golf for any player to do
consistently well in tournaments. In some sports, such as tennis, the top-ranked few players in
any tournament usually do very well, whereas in golf it is much more common for top players
to perform no better than most others in the tournament, while less fancied players are at the
top of the leaderboard. This is because of the greater variation in scores and the potential to
lose several shots very quickly.
It is reassuring that the variables defined above have much larger F -ratios than the factors used
here, suggesting that these stylistic variables are not swamped by simple between-tournament
and between-player variability. This leads to the hope that more meaningful variables will have
even greater predictive value.
7. Conclusions and proposals for further work
We have attempted to investigate the components of golfing success in a slightly more subtle
way than previous references, trying to avoid simply predicting that players who reach the green
quickly and take few putts will score well, since this is obvious. However, as we have seen, it
is very difficult to tease out measures of playing style or component skills from the data that
are currently collected. Only the figures for driving accuracy and distance can be regarded as
measures of this type, since all other figures represent mixtures of skills.
Therefore, if people wish to break golf down into its constituent skills more effectively then
more data need to be collected, and in particular more different variables. The driving data are
relatively easy to collect since, at a given hole, every player starts in virtually the same place.
Collecting similar data for iron shots would need to record start as well as finish locations, not
to mention positions relative to the green, since all analyses would need to be conditional on
where the drive ended to distinguish between driving and iron skills. The same comments apply
to putting, if we wish to separate out putting skill from iron skill.
A very interesting figure, if collected, would be to record the distance from the hole both
before and after every putt a player makes, since this would be close to being a direct measure
of a players putting ability. Lorensen and Yamron (1992) illustrated the detection of golf-balls
from television cameras, stressing the large times required for surveying the greens, although
with current hardware this should be much easier. However, the results obtained could still be

228

R. Ketzscher and T. J. Ringrose

biased by the very different natures of different greens, since the difficulty of a putt is a function
of the topography of the green as well as distance from the hole. Similarly, a record of final
distances from the hole, and whether on the green or not, for iron shots of given distances and
locations, would give some chance of disentangling the various effects. However, as we move
further from the hole the numbers become more difficult to interpret as the different natures of
the particular holes may make averaging figures over them meaningless.
In addition, these figures need to be available at a finer level than simply averages over the
season, as for the variables that are currently recorded. Although such averaging is often sensible,
as with the case of DrivDist noted above, having data on individual tournaments, rounds or
even holes clearly gives more information on variability and links between variables. More
detailed measurements, such as those proposed above, available per hole, per round or at least
per tournament, should help to uncover the components of golfing success. For example, does
success in a given competition tend to go to those who putt best, those who pitch onto the green
most accurately or those who drive furthest?
In summary, current measurements are clearly insufficient if they are to be used for predictions. Although, compared with other sports, statistics of golf seasons are a true reflection of
what they are supposed to represent, a greater variety of data, at a greater level of detail, needs to
be collected to achieve practically useful results.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the European PGA for the provision of, and permission to
use, the data. In particular we thank Nick Metcalf for many clarifications and much useful
information.
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