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Player Rankings By Frankenstats

I have always enjoyed Hound Dog's Frankenstats because they attempt to rank the players by how good various parts of their game are (total driving and total putting). I carried out that idea to the maximum limit and ranked players by a combination of LPGA stats and Frankenstats, I have the  player ranking given below. Approximately 60 percent of a players strokes are from tee to green, and approximately 40 percent of a players strokes are putts. So my rankings must reflect that ratio with 40 percent based on putting stats and 60 based on stats tee to green.  The first Frankenstat used will be Total Driving. I think of it as Driving Efficiency and use a divisor of 1.8 instead of the divisor of 6 Hound Dog uses. His values start around 75 go down, while mine are above 250 and go down (closer to actual driving distance). Longer drivers still have the advantage in this rating but players with great accuracy and shorter driving distances (Paula Creamer and Jiyai Shin) rank very well. The next stat I use is Greens In Regulation which is a proxy  for how well a player plays their irons. The third stat is another Frankenstat, the total number of strokes per round a player uses to get on the green (TtG Strokes). This stat has a lot of long hitters toward the top because of their ability to reach par fives in two. The next stat is Putts Per GIR (greens in regulation), which is the closest to a true putting stat available. The last is another Frankenstat, Adjusted Total Putting which calculates putts per round a players would use if they hit 12 greens in regulation and missed 6, thereby puting all players putting on the same basis. I then average where a player ranks in each stat and order the ranking from lowest to highest average.

Frankenstats are stats that uses multiple stats from the LPGA  to calculate a new stat.

Here is the complete spreadsheet - HD:

2009 Rankings by Frankenstats


     Player                 HD Rank    TD    %GIR    TtG      PGIR    Adj Putts    AVG

 1 Lorena Ochoa           1            1          8          9           1           10          5.8

 2 Cristie Kerr               4            5          2          1          19            6          6.6

 3 Paula Creamer        11            7          1          3          27            4           8.4

 4 Jiyai Shin                 2            6         15        20           2            1           8.8

 4 Ai Miyazato              3          11        13        11          6              3            8.8

 6 Suzann Pettersen     6          16         10         4            8            20         11.6

 7 Angela Stanford        9            2         12         8           21           21         12.8

 8 Na Yeon Choi           5           20        14       12           28             9          16.6 

 9 Song Hee Kim        13          29         28       22            3              2          16.8

10 In-Kyung Kim         12          38          7        16            7             19         17.4

11 Yani Tseng              8          15         11         5           57            23         22.2

11 Kristy McPherson   18          14         16       18         35             28         22.2

13 Brittany Lang          17           4           5        15         55             34         22.6

14 Helen Alfredsson    31          17         27        25        20             27         23.2

15 Sun Young Yoo      21            9           6         7          46             49         23.4

16 Anna Nordqvist       7            41         30       28         24              5          25.6

17 Michelle Wie          10           75         21       14          5               22        27.4

18 Maria Hjorth           23            8           4         2          53              71        27.6

19 Natalie Gulbis        25           44         47       41          9               11        30.4

20 Seon Hwa Lee       27           19         40       48         34              16        31.4

21 Catriona Matthew   15           68         29      30         15               17       31.8

22 Sophie Gustafson  19          22         18        6          62               73       36.2

23 Lindsey Wright      20          42         39       33         36              32        36.4

24 Paige Mackenzie   51          21         19       27         60               57       36.8

25 Karrie Webb          14          28           9       13         78               58       37.2

26 Vicky Hurst           32          18         26       19         45              79        37.4

27 Amy Yang             34          55         31       29         39              42        39.2

28 Morgan Pressel     22          72         37       38         42              14        40.6

29 Katherine Hull        30          64         55       53         16              18        41.2

30 Janice Moodie        41          31         34       34         58              65        44.4

Hound Dog's ranking is greatly influenced by who wins. This ranking is based on who plays well in all parts of the game. So Paula Creamer ranks third here but only eleventh on HD Ranking, while Anna Nordqvist ranks sixteenth here and seventh on HD Ranking. So why did Nordqvist win twice and Creamer, who overall played much better, not win at all. The thing I remember about Nordqvist's wins was that she putted crazy good. I remember relatively poor chip shots where she made the putts and made birdies when she had a chance. Jiyai Shin had 3 wins and ranked first and second in the two putting stats. The data seems to suggest a hot putter will win a lot of tournaments. Creamer had 2 second place finishes and 4 third place finishes, suggesting only a putt here or there per round going in the hole and she could have won multiple times. 27th place in Putts Per GIR suggest Creamer putted well, but never really got hot with her putter. Paige Mackenzie being ranked 24th in this analysis is the biggest surprise in this list for me. Does this suggest that with a little improvement in her putting she could have a break out year. Brittany Lang is another player who ranks very well tee to green but must putt better to win.

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thanks!

I’ve been defending Gulbis’s game ver at Waggle Room, but even I am surprised by how high she ranks here.

Care to expand it to a top 50? I’d love to see where some of the really good putters on tour like Inbee Park, M.J. Hur, and Shi Hyun Ahn end up….

by The Constructivist on Jan 13, 2010 10:53 PM PST reply actions   0 recs

2009 LPGA data has for 150 Players

I am working my way through all 150 players. There are about 30 players left to calculate and those are the players who had the worst seasons, so I do not expect any changes to this list when I finish.

by tatkins on Jan 14, 2010 7:25 AM PST up reply actions   0 recs

Your Wish is ...

Player – rank – HD rank – TD – %GIR – TtG – PGIR – Adj Putting – AVG
Inbee Park 87 59 123 138 135 4 8 81.6
M.J.Hur 74 40 132 113 114 11 12 76.4
Shi Hyun Ahn 42 64 37 87 98 22 29 54.6

by tatkins on Jan 14, 2010 10:41 AM PST up reply actions   0 recs

great stuff as usual from Tatkins

I would expect Mackenzie to show better results in 2010 even if her putting doesn’t improve – those are tee-to-green numbers of a Top 25 player. I’m sure Tatkins knows this but for the rest of you – changing the divisor on Total Driving doesn’t modify its rankings at all, it just gives you a different raw number.

One question – how did you calculate TtG? Scoring average minus putting average?

by hound dog on Jan 14, 2010 4:35 AM PST reply actions   0 recs

attach a spreadsheet

I will send you a spreadsheet containing all 150 players to attach to this post.

by tatkins on Jan 14, 2010 11:30 AM PST up reply actions   0 recs

Tee to Green

Yes TtG numbers are calculated by Scoring average minus putting average, but I do not use the scoring average given in the LPGA stats (I first calculate the scoring average for only those tournaments that the LPGA has the rest of the stats). That way the numbers are consistant.

by tatkins on Jan 14, 2010 7:17 AM PST reply actions   0 recs

tatkins, did any player's stats surprise you?

I’m not surprised that putting apparently separates the winners from the rest, since that seems to be true no matter what tour you look at. After all, there’s lots of ways to get the ball from the tee to the green, but you have to putt to get the ball into the hole!

But I was surprised how high Creamer ranked in your stats.Not because I don’t think she’s a great player, but after fighting the after-effects of that mysterious stomach ailment all year, I was amazed at how well she held up against the rest of the field..Guess that says a lot about her determination, doesn’t it?

Mike Southern
www.ruthlessgolf.com

by Ruthless Mike on Jan 14, 2010 8:51 AM PST reply actions   0 recs

I am currently looking at the whole list of 150 players

I mentioned Page Mackenzie in the post. No other players in the top 30 stuck out.
I have included the (Atkins modified Hound Dog Ranking) in the spredsheet and am looking for anomalies and looking at what else the data indicates. All 150 players are ranked in my ranking system. I wanted to see what comments others would make, so I posted before I had completed my analysis of what the data actually means to me.

I was not surprised that Creamer ranked very high in the Frankenstats, because of the fact that she had 2 seconds and 4 thirds. I agree with you, that the fact she was able to perform so well with the mysterious stomach aiment and the hand injury shows just how determined she is and how much she wants to win.

by tatkins on Jan 14, 2010 4:11 PM PST reply actions   0 recs

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