Teeing High and Ranking High
A story of what stats and skills mean to the most when it comes to World Golf Rankings
Introduction
All professional golfers have the dream of becoming the best golfer in the world. To accomplish this goal, there are many skills and parts of the game of golf that need to be mastered. I had the question if one of these skills was more important than the rest when it comes to climbing the rankings. In other posts I have discussed where and how I found data to look at these stats when compared to players rankings. I also have done a little bit of analysis of different trends and interesting things that I found. This post will go over what I found as the most interesting piece of this puzzle. Pro Golf Stats
What Matters Most?
When looking at what affected rankings the most, one of the biggest thing I looked at was a golfers average score. Obviuosly a golfer who averages a better score is going to be higher in the rankings. This would mean they are placing higher in tournaments than other golfers are. I then looked at different parts of the game and how they affected a golfers overall average score. These stats include things like average driving distance and driving accuaracy. When you look at the correlation of these stats with score, there is little to no correlation between the two. The one stat that does show a stronger correlation is putts taken. This is the average amount of putts a golfer takes on any given hole. Golfers who take fewer putts on average score better than golfers who struggle on the green.
The graph shows how some golfers on the PGA Tour struggle with their putter and their score suffers because of it. To illustrate this point a little better, here is a video of one of the top golfers in the world, Rory McIlory, having a tough time finishing a hole off with his putter. Rory McIlroy 4 putts
Other Things to Note
The data did also include things like cuts made, wins, and top 10 finishes. These factor into a ranking pretty heavily but this is probably largely because that is pretty much how the rankings are made. By finishing higher in a tournament, a golfer earns more points towards their overall ranking. This goes the same for earnings. Players who earn more are going to be finishing higher in tournaments and becoming higher ranks than those who earn less.
Conclusion
Golf is arguably one of the hardest sports in the world. It takes a lot of time and effort to become even an above average golfer. It takes full commitment to become one of the best golfers in the world. For those who are looking how to best spend there time in order to become a better golfer may want to focus on the short game. Whether you are one of the best in the world looking to climb a little higher, or a golfer who gets out when they can, an improved short game, espcially improvment with the putter, can make a large difference and help lower your score.