Golf - player of the year (November 10, 2003)
Hmmm... this Woods/Singh thing sounds like Barry/Pujols.
Let's see.... Singh won 7.5 million$ in 27 events, with 18 finishes in the top 10, and 4 wins. Woods won 6.6 million$ in 18 events, with 12 finishes in the top 10, and 5 wins.
What's the replacement level $ / event in the PGA???
Was it necessary for Woods to play in 9 more events and make 100,000$ in each event to show he had the better season? Then he'd have to give up Gisele.
--posted by TangoTiger at 05:09 PM EDT
Posted 5:43 p.m.,
November 10, 2003
(#1) -
dlf
In baseball, MVP, Cy Young, etc. specifically exclude postseason performance. The equivilent in golf has to be the Majors. I would suspect that Player of the Year voters give more weight to performance in the Masters or British Open than they do to the Greater Hartford Open.
Posted 6:51 p.m.,
November 10, 2003
(#2) -
Greg Tamer(e-mail)
I think you also need to adjust for strength of competition in each event. Singh or Woods might have accumulated an unfair amount of top ten finished against inferior competition.
Posted 8:39 p.m.,
November 10, 2003
(#3) -
Joe C
Tiger's scoring average was around 68.3 (dont remember exactly), 2nd lowest EVER for a full season on the PGA tour. Again, I suppose we'd have to adjust for aggregate scores of those tournaments..
Posted 9:36 p.m.,
November 10, 2003
(#4) -
Steve Rohde
I am not certain, but I believe that the scoring average used for Vardon Trophy determination already makes some adjustment for average scores in tournaments. Also, Woods was more selective in which tournaments he played in, but he played in all of the most important tournaments which would tend to have the best fields, and in general those tournaments tend to be played on the tougher courses.
Neither player won a major. Given Woods' greater number of total wins and his substantially better scoring average, I would think that he deserves the edge, although this is the first time in years that it has even been close.
Posted 9:44 p.m.,
November 10, 2003
(#5) -
Steve Rohde
While there is some similarity between Woods vs. Singh and Bonds vs. Pujols, one difference is that the idea of measuring against replacement level per se is of questionable relevance in the golf palyher of the year race. Replacement level has a clear rationale in a team sport when you are measuring contributions of two players in helping their teams win games, but it is not clear what the relevant analogy would be in an individual sport.
Posted 10:38 p.m.,
November 11, 2003
(#6) -
Michael
Yeah, and in many ways the replacement level in golf is pretty near $0 (I think). If you had to pick one guy who you got a cut in when he played, and when he didn't you got a cut of the last player to make the tournament (some invited pro who doesn't have a PGA card) then I think this replacement level is pretty near $0. As I think in most tournaments (not counting the appearance money the top pros get) that to get paid you need to at least make the cut. And most of the time the last player invited to a tournament doesn't make the cut.
So Vijay's durability should be an asset. Because it is entirely possible that if Tiger played more he would have played worse as he would have been more fatigued or less focused. If you told me they were both playing a big tournament and I had to pick one, based only on this year's performance, I'd probably go with Woods [although the fact that Singh >= Woods in every major suggests this isn't clear cut]. But if you told me I got a cut of their winnings for a full year, I'd go for Singh (assuming this year's results to be their true talen level). Which suggests that if we are looking for the VALUE counting stat Singh wins, while Woods may win the VALUE rate stat.
Posted 1:03 p.m.,
December 8, 2003
(#7) -
Randy
I agree that Tiger should win Player of the Year, esp. since he won the Vardon Trophy, which is the best barometer of how well a player did!!!
Posted 7:45 p.m.,
December 9, 2003
(#8) -
Steve Rohde
It was announced yesterday that Woods did win player of the year, for the 5th year in a row.
Posted 9:40 p.m.,
December 9, 2003
(#9) -
AED
The scoring average used by the PGA adjusts for the mean score of each round, but I'm fairly sure it does not adjust for the level of difficulty. By and large this doesn't matter, except for limited-field events like the Mercedes, Tour Championship, and WGC events (or the leftover events like the Tucson Open that are played on the same weeks). Because Woods preferentially plays in the elite events, his actual skill is slightly better than is indicated by the scoring average (by about 0.15 strokes per round).
The "replacement level" would be around $500,000, if you define replacement level as earning enough to keep your card (top 125).