Dan2501
Tour Winner
Started listening to the NLU pod with Justin Ray (@JustinRayGolf on Twitter) this morning and being big into my sports stats it was an absolute joy - well worth a listen. Soly asked him to pull together some "homework" for the pod which included a top 10 of Tiger stats, and they're remarkable:
- From 2003 through 2005 Tiger had 1543 putts from 3ft and in, he missed 3 of them
- There are 8 PGA tour seasons since 1983 which a player beat the field average by 2.6 shots by round. All 8 of those seasons belong to Tiger Woods.
- Tiger is the only player to win the US Junior Amateur, the US Amateur and the US Open in his career. He won each 3 times.
- In the 16 rounds of the Tiger Slam, Tiger beat the field by an average of 5.4 shots per round. That means, during the Tiger slam, he beat the field average by a combined total of 86 strokes.
- Tiger during the 2000 season had 1 score worse than 73. That was during the first round of The Masters when he shot 75, and he still beat the field average by half a shot that day
- During a stretch from May of 99 through the end of 2000, Tiger played in 34 tournaments worldwide. He won 18 of them. In that span he had 7 wins by 4 or more, he had 4 finishes outside the top 10.
- Tiger has won 5 straight PGA Tour starts 3 different times, he's the only player in the past 60 years to do it once.
- Tiger won 9 times in the 2000 PGA Tour season, no other player led after 9 rounds that year.
- Tiger has 40 European Tour wins, 3rd most all-time. He's never played on the European Tour.
- From '97 through 2008, Tiger was -126 in Majors, there are 138 other players in that span with at least 40 rounds in majors. Of that group - 2nd place is Joe Ogilvy at +63. Tiger is more than 200 shots ahead of Phil and Ernie in that span.
- Honourable mention: Lydia Ko won 10 LPGA Tour events before she turned 19. Nancy Lopez held the previous record, she got there at age 22.
- Players with a 1, 2 or 3 shots lead after 54 holes win 33% of the time in the last 6 years. Players with a 1 shot lead win 26% of the time. Once you get up to the 4+ shot lead category it rises up to around 80%. (Tiger is 46/48 with an outright lead for reference)
- Nobody has ever won The Players in back to back years. Only 2 defending champions have ever finished in the Top 5.
- The last 4 Ryder Cups on European Soil - American players ranked in the Top 10 at the time have a combined record of 24-42-6
- Jack Nicklaus has 73 Major Top 10s. Since the first Masters was held in 34 - that's 25 more than anyone else. Sam Snead is 2nd with 48. Jack's top 10s are equivalent to Sam Snead + Billy Casper.
- Over the last 40 years, there are more than 300 players who have played at least 10 rounds at The Masters. 4 players have gained 1.8 strokes or more per round on the field in that group - those players are Jordan Spieth, Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Anthony Kim.
