Golf Statistics Article

I grew up in a golfing family, so I've been playing and watching golf since I was a little kid.

For most of that time, I've been tracking my golf outings. Always score, of course, but often putts, penalties, sand shots, clubs used, and whether a shot felt good. This season, I have been tracking the distance each shot goes using a gps device, by club, hole, and lie.

The data isn't very useful, given the big number of variables in a round of golf, and the small number of rounds I play each year. But, it has been interesting to look at, and has helped me finetune my play in small ways. (as an example, earlier in the season I was having a problem with three-putts. After looking through some rounds, I realized my medium and short length putts seemed fine, but my long putts were consistently leaving me with medium length putts instead of short putts.).

So, I was extremely excited to see an article in Slate about golf statistics!

From the article, I learned that the PGA employs ShotLink to record each shot made during its tournaments. With that wealth of information, there are many applications. For example, individual players can determine how they rank in types of shots compared to their peers to determine where to focus their practice efforts. They have also determined that if the hole were twice the size, poor putters would benefit more than good putters.

Mark Broadie, a golf researcher at Columbia, presented at the 2008 World Scientific Congress of Golf. A related paper, with much more detailed analyses is located here.

I would love to get my hands on the ShotLink data - there are so many interesting questions waiting to be answered!