Big Three Stats - July 2009

I promised Tatkins and The Constructivist that I would tally up the latest Total Driving and Total Putting numbers after the U.S. Open, so here they are along with the latest GIR - all in one handy-dandy spreadsheet!  I'll list the Top
20 for those of you who get headaches from looking at too many numbers: 

Total Driving, GIR, Total Putting spreadsheet - 07-15-09

Comments on the lists - The players who are in the Top 20 in all three categories are Jiyai Shin, Cristie Kerr and....Helen Alfredsson?  I'm more surprised than you are.  Suzann Pettersen is 21^st in putting while Angela Stanford is 29^th, both just missing the Top 20 in all three.  Other surprises - Seon Hwa Lee is 10^th in TD (she was 20^th in her rookie year of '06 but nowhere near the Top 10 since) and Shiho Oyama is 15^th in GIR.

What sparked my promise to do the stat update was a Fanpost by Tatkins two weeks ago where he unveiled his Adjusted Putting Average.  He also asked me to do a Stat Relevance comparison of all the putting stats - his APA, my Total Putting, and the two LPGA-produced PPGIR and Putting Average.  I used the 2008 numbers to calculate how many of my final 2008 Top 30 players ranked in the Top 30 of each stat and how many of my Top 20 ranked in the Top 20 of each stat, reasoning that higher numbers would mean that stat is more useful in determining a good player.  Only 29 players could be used for this study because #3 Jiyai Shin was not included in the 2008 LPGA stats (being a non-member).  Her omission should not affect the final results.

I had already calculated the number of players for TP, PPGIR and PA in 2008 and once I tallied up the numbers for Adjusted Putting Average, here is the comparison:

For 2008, APA beats Total Putting and challenges PPGIR as the putting number most relevant to a good player.  I have seen the Relevance change from year to year (it IS a rather small data set) but I wouldn't expect any huge swings over time.  I was very impressed that APA nailed 15 of the possible 19 players in its Top 20.  That's pretty darned relevant in anybody's book!