"The proposed method also takes into account the strong negative relationship that exists between driving accuracy and driving distance."

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Thanks to reader Al for this press release that I know you all will understand just as easily as I did.

A New Method for Ranking Total Driving Performance on the PGA Tour
Northeastern University Business School Professors Argue Current Ranking Method Statistically Inaccurate; New Method More Accurate at Capturing Relationship Between Accuracy and Distance

BOSTON, Aug. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Northeastern University's College of Business Administration today announced that three Northeastern professors have devised a new, more statistically accurate and relevant way to rank the Total Driving performance of golfers on the Professional Golf Association Tour (PGA Tour). The new ranking methodology attempts to standardize the differences between driving distance and driving accuracy, as well as account for one factor's influence on the other, enabling a comparison of Total Driving performance to more accurately reflect the true differences between the players.

The table below provides statistics on the top six players under the new "Z" ranking, as well as the top six currently ranked players in the world:

        Player           New Z    PGA Total    Driving   Driving   World
                             Rank      Driving     Distance  Accuracy  Ranking
                                          Ranking(1)   (yds.)     (%)

    Charles Warren        1         1         303.3       66.64     169
    Bubba Watson         2        82         316.2       55.34      87
    J.B. Holmes             3        61         312.4       56.37     125
    Hunter Mahan          4         2         298.6       67.44      48
    Matthew Goggin      5         3         297.4       66.21     157
    Jason Gore             6         5         301.0       62.87     176
    Tiger Woods           30        69         301.9       57.25       1
    Adam Scott             36        71         300.9       57.34       5
    Jim Furyk                51        77         279.3       74.87       2
    Ernie Els                 74       113         298.7       56.33       4
    Phil Mickelson       103       133         299.1       53.88       3
    Padraig Harrington  128       160         294.4       56.22       6

    (1) PGA Total Driving ranking as of August 19, 2007

The PGA Tour currently ranks its players according to their overall Total Driving performance by adding together the individual ranks given to each golfer for their average driving distance and for their driving accuracy percentage. According to Professors Frederick Wiseman, Ph.D., Mohamed Habibullah, Ph.D. and Mustafa Yilmaz, Ph.D., however, this widely used and reported measure is inappropriate because it is based upon the addition of two ranks in which the underlying differences between successive ranks are not equal.

"Both average driving distance and the driving accuracy percentages are ratio-scaled data. What we wish to do is to combine these two measures into a single overall measure of Total Driving performance," says Fred Wiseman, Ph.D., lead author of the study and Professor of Information, Operation and Analysis at the College of Business Administration at Northeastern University. "The measure we propose is based upon two statistically independent standardized z-scores, one for driving distance, and the other for driving accuracy given driving distance."

Standardized z-scores are commonly used in many disciplines for comparing performances when different units of measurement are involved. This evaluation of the total driving rankings of the PGA first appeared in a paper written by these three professors entitled A New Method for Ranking Total Driving Performance on the PGA Tour, which appeared in the Spring 2007 edition of The Sport Journal. The rankings released today are the final rankings based upon regular season play on this year's PGA Tour. In that paper's conclusion, the professors wrote:

"The proposed method for ranking golfers according to their Total Driving skill takes into account the magnitude of the differences that exist between players on each of the two driving dimensions. The current PGA Tour method does not. The proposed method also takes into account the strong negative relationship that exists between driving accuracy and driving distance. This negative relationship is reflected in the new conditional standardized z- score."

These factors resulted in an improved Total Driving Performance Ranking, compared to their PGA Tour ranking, for each of the top six players in the world. Computationally, the proposed method is slightly more involved than other existing methods, but this is not a significant factor today.

About Northeastern University College of Business Administration

Northeastern University College of Business Administration, established in 1922, provides its students - undergraduate, graduate and executive - with the education, tools and experience necessary to launch and accelerate successful business careers. The College credits its success to expert faculty, close partnerships with industry, and its emphasis on rigorous academics combined with experiential learning.

Among many external measures of success, BusinessWeek ranks the College 26th in its "Best Undergraduate B-schools." The College's Bachelor of Science in International Business program is ranked in the U.S. top 15 by U.S. News & World Report. Financial Times ranks the College's Executive MBA program in the US top 50 and U.S. News & World Report ranks the College's part-time MBA program #21 in the country. For more information about Northeastern University College of Business Administration, visit http://cba.neu.edu.

 

"I'm killing it, and it doesn't go anywhere"

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PH2007070100981.jpgThe Washington Post's Eli Saslow asks PGA Tour pro Steve Marino, used to manicured greens and exquisite fairways, battles public course hazards at East Potomac.

Thanks to readers John and Phil for this fun story.

The more I watched Marino play, the more convinced I became that golf, for us, involved little common ground. When I asked Marino about the obstacles I considered daunting on PGA Tour courses -- long holes, imposing water hazards, gigantic bunkers -- Marino said they never bothered him. Similarly, at East Potomac, Marino obsessed over details I had never noticed. Overgrown fairways made it impossible, he said, to generate substantial spin on iron shots. Stiff sand traps caused the ball to release on a flat trajectory, negating the importance of touch.

I guess Marino hasn't gotten the USGA memo that U-grooves function better out of light rough than they do from tight fairways! 

The greens bothered Marino most. After six months spent on greens that ran as fast as tiled kitchen floors, Marino now felt like he was putting along the bottom of a filled swimming pool. No matter how hard he hit it, the ball almost always slid through sand or water and grinded to a halt short of the hole. After Marino left two consecutive putts short on No. 11, he dropped his putter on the green.

"I'm killing it, and it doesn't go anywhere," he said. "I might just start putting with my driver."
 

R.I.P Dowd and Mineck

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Over at the much improved Golfweek tour blog, Jeff Babineau express sadness at the sad loss of two people in golf, one I had the privilege of knowing. I'm copying and pasting here since the Golfweek blog posts can't be individually linked...

What a sad couple of days for golf.

Kelly Jo Dowd, who inspired us all with her strength and spirit, passed away Thursday after a long battle with cancer. She was 42.

The Dowd family’s plight became a national story 13 months ago, when Dakoda Dowd, then 13, played the LPGA’s Ginn Open at Reunion Resort, just outside Orlando. I’ll never forget seeing Kelly Jo raise her hands high in the air when Dakoda ripped her opening drive right down the middle. “Proud” doesn’t begin to capture what was filling up her heart that morning.

When Dakoda birdied the hole, she beamed, “My daughter’s a stud.”

Months earlier, Kelly Jo sat on a wooden bench near the practice tee at Reunion as Dakoda hit golf balls. The deep love for her child was so evident in her eyes. The parent-child bond the two shared, and the sense of family enjoyed by Dakoda, Kelly Jo and Mike Dowd – Kelly Jo’s husband and Dakoda's dad – is something every family should strive to achieve. We’d all be richer. Life dealt the Dowd family a tough hand, and they’ve always handled it with incredible class.

The news of Kelly Jo’s passing comes on the heels of  news earlier in the day of the shocking, sudden death of John Mineck in the Boston area on Thursday. It would be inaccurate to say John didn’t have any kids. His “baby” was his beloved Boston Golf Club, and it was there  on Thursday his life came to a tragic end, as he was killed in an accident incurred while he operated heavy machinery on property at the club.

Boston Golf Club, if you haven’t had the pleasure of visiting, is such an incredible place, so cool. It has John’s indelible fingerprints all over it. It always will.

Condolences to both families. Kelly Jo and John were special, kindred spirits who lived life with a vibrant energy we all should carry each morning the sun comes up.

As I write this, it’s nearly 1 a.m., and my – and John’s – beloved Red Sox are on TV, winning a rain-delayed game out in Texas. My 6-year-old son, Luke, is asleep next to me on the couch, no doubt dreaming of something grand that only 6-year-olds can dream. When I carry him up the stairs to bed tonight, you can bet he’ll get an extra hug and kiss.

Too often we’re starkly reminded how short life really is.

 

113,527,276,681,000,000 to 1

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Carl Bialik crunches the numbers in his WSJ column on the odds of multiple hole-in-one's holes-in-one.*  And no one told his editors that you make a hole in one. You don't hit it.
Jacqueline Gagne has had 10 once-in-a-lifetime experiences in less than four months.

Since Jan. 23, the 46-year-old from Rancho Mirage, Calif., has hit 10 holes in one, or just eight fewer than were hit on the entire Ladies Professional Golf Association tour last year.

Her local paper, the Desert Sun of Palm Springs, Calif., has corroborated Ms. Gagne's feat, running notes alongside articles from editors saying they're just as skeptical as readers, but everything has checked out.

The paper also asked a local statistician, Michael McJilton of the College of the Desert, to compute the odds against the feat. The result, which headlined the article: 113,527,276,681,000,000 to 1. And that was after just seven aces. I asked Mr. McJilton to repeat the computation after Ms. Gagne hit three more in the following couple of weeks, over a total of just 75 rounds. He returned the astronomical number of roughly 12 septillion (12 followed by 24 zeroes) to 1. Such an unlikely event should never happen. It's like winning the lottery four straight times. No wonder David Letterman came calling.

Private Jet Travel Tax Increase?

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John Hughes and Jonathan Salent report for Bloomberg on a possible Bush Administration-sponsored tax hike on corporate jet travel.

Not only would this have ramifications for the professional golf and courses in remote locations, but think of the burden this might place on USGA presidential jet travel?  Good thing they're cutting those USGA employee benefits!

Nice Going Wally

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Scott Paske in the Wichita Eagle, reporting on the response to help local athletes in hard hit Greensburg, Kansas:

Tim Hacker, who runs a golf academy based in Alpharetta, Ga., has led an effort to assist GHS golfers. Hacker graduated from Greensburg in 1983 and has followed media reports about the tornado and its aftermath.

Working with his friend and fellow teaching pro Stan Utley, he secured the donation of golf equipment to the school from Titleist chairman and chief executive Wally Uihlein.

Hacker, who is affiliated with Callaway Golf, was also working with that company on a possible donation.