Who's the best? Who's the best golfer , End Swing Confusion Forever! in the world? Not such a difficult question. You probably only have to choose between a handful of golfers , The Best Vacation You Ever Had '? Tiger Woods, , 2006 Trends in High Tech Equipment Vijay Singh, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen and Phil Mickelson. And, on current form, it's probably got to be Woods. , Thinking & Planning on a Par 3 You would have a hard job arguing the case for anyone else. Who are the ten best golfers , The Best Vacation You Ever Had in the world? That's a bit harder. And, the top 50 golfers , Top Tips For Beating The Bunker in the world? Now it's starting to get really tricky. If presented with this question, the temptation would be to turn to the Official World Golf , Are You Fully Committed to Playing Your Best ? Rankings or perhaps the money lists of the European and US Tours. This would obviously give you a fair indication of who are the best golfers , Consistency and Scoring in the world, but how reliable are these rankings? Are they really the best way to assess the merits of each golfer? And, if as you discover below, these methods have some fundamental flaws, are there better ways to rate each golfer's abilities? Official World Golf , Why Exercise Is Crucial In Achieving The Correct Swing Rankings The sports , End Swing Confusion Forever! media tend to place great emphasis on the Official World Golf , Some Facts for Individual ing Rankings. In 2004, as Vijay Singh took over the number one spot from Tiger Woods, , Training Impact... Are Impact Indicators Any Good? the sports , Your Own Swing, The Foundation, & How Low You Score pages of the world's newspapers devoted many column inches to the story. But did it really mean anything? If you look at how the World Rankings are compiled, you might just decide that it was a silly story that, quite frankly, didn't mean very much. The World Rankings are compiled using a well-meaning, but ultimately unscientific formula. Points are awarded to players , Golf, First Hole of Emotion according to the players' finishing position in each professional tournament. , Stretching Secrets to Improve Performance The points awarded are generally related to the strength of the field in the tournament. , The Basics Of Learning The four majors and the US Tour's Players , Tiger Woods, the Greatest Ever? -NOT! Championship receive special status because of the strength of competition, and they carry significantly more points. Each players' points are accumulated over a two year rolling period with the points awarded in the past 13 week period doubled. Ranking points decline in eight equal quarter year intervals and after 2 years the points are eliminated altogether. As World Rankings are based on finishing position, they take absolutely no account of score differentials. So, if a player , The Best Vacation You Ever Had wins a major six shots clear of the next best player, , Discount Vacation Package Tips '? Don't Gamble with Your Vacation he will receive exactly the same number of points as if he had only prevailed by a solitary shot. Yet surely, securing victory in a major by a six shot margin should be rated much higher. Another quirk of the World Rankings is the fact that they assume a minimum of 40 tournaments , Controlled Body Movement The Key Essential For Your Game played in a two-year period. Players , The Future of Junior who have not participated in 40 tournaments , End Swing Confusion Forever! will nevertheless have their points score divided by 40. Although this is understandable in that it prevents players , 4 Important Factors That Affect Your Swing shooting up the rankings by virtue of playing well in a small number of tournaments, , Putting Practice 101 it does under-rate players , Your Swing Is Good Enough who have been injured or players , Stretching Secrets to Improve Performance who choose to play , Las Vegas Courses, and the 'Losers' Who Them a small number of tournaments. , Chip or Putt? In the unlikely event that a player , YouNeed An Ireland Vacation! only played the four majors, but won them all by an average of 5 shots each, the player , Stretching Secrets to Improve Performance would retain a lowly ranking as his points total would still be divided by 40. Yet surely he would have to be the best golfer , 2006 Trends in High Tech Equipment in the world! Although this is an extreme and highly unlikely scenario, it nonetheless demonstrates the peculiarities of the World Rankings system. Money Lists The media also made a great fuss of Vijay Singh when he won the 2004 Money List in the US, and cleared $10million in prize money for the season, the first time this have ever been achieved. This was undoubtedly a fine achievement and warranted the plaudits that Vijay received for such a superb season. However, did it make Vijay ten times better than Jeff Sluman who won just $1m in prize money in 2004? And how can we translate this superiority into the number of shots per round? The manner in which prize money is allocated in each tournament , The Future of Junior is not proportionate to the number of shots taken to complete the four rounds of golf. , Your Swing Is Good Enough For each place up the leader board, a golfer , PGA Tour: Season Recap receives an incrementally larger amount of prize money. Thus, the differential between players , Mental, Physical, Nutritional, and Biomechanical Preparation for Your Game finishing 60th and 50th, will be much less than between those finishing 1st and 10th. The ability to hold one's game , Your Swing Is Good Enough together under pressure is undoubtedly a characteristic that differentiates an average player , Seven Easy Steps To Cure A Addict from a great player, , Fitness Exercises Can Help You Drive the Ball Farther and Straighter but surely we place too much store on this if we base our opinion on how much money a player , 2006 Trends in High Tech Equipment has won? By way of an example, take Craig Parry's victory in the Australian Open at Royal Melborune Golf Club , Seven Easy Steps To Cure A Addict in January 2005. After 72 holes , Why Exercise Is Crucial In Achieving The Correct Swing he finished joint leader with Nich O'Hern. Four days play , The Basics Of Learning and the pair could not be separated. A play , Las Vegas Courses, and the 'Losers' Who Them off followed, and Craig Parry eventually triumphed after another four holes. , Discount Vacation Package Tips '? Don't Gamble with Your Vacation His reward was prize money of Eur225,367, whereas Nick O'Hern walked away with Eur127,708. Twice as good for holding one's nerve? Probably not. Surely the 72 holes , How to Take Strokes off your Game by Mastering the Mental Part of it of golf , Fitness Exercises Can Help You Drive the Ball Farther and Straighter was a better guide to the respective merits of each golfer. , The Dramatic Effect Of A Stretching Exercise For Nerve versus consistency Both World Rankings and Money Lists tend to place greater emphasis on big event performances. They also tend to overrate those finishing in the top few places of a tournament, , A Driver Tip To Remember particular the majors. Arguably, this helps to identify those players , The Quickest and Easiest Way to Draw the Ball with the greatest nerve and the ability to handle the big occasion. Identifying such players , End Swing Confusion Forever! is always going to be helpful in picking likely tournament , Don't Get Ripped Off On Vacations winners, especially the big ones. However, this does not fairly reflect the '?day-to-day' playing merits of each player. , Are Conditioning Routines Really Necessary The modern golf , Putting Practice 101 professional plays , Are You Fully Committed to ing Your Best ? week in week out in regular tournaments, , The Future of Junior where the key to making a steady living is consistent scoring. To the punter, consistent performance week in week out is equally important. In three ball , Don't Get Ripped Off On Vacations betting, it's especially important to have such players , Discount Vacation Package Tips '? Don't Gamble with Your Vacation on your side. You want the best golfer , How to Win at on your side, not necessarily the best one-tournament wonder. Stroke Averages and Scoring Average All the major tours calculate stroke , How to Win at averages and scoring averages for players , 5 Keys to Mental Toughness for Junior Golfers and these statistics do provide a better measure of performance relative to other golfers. , Las Vegas Courses, and the 'Losers' Who Play Them However, they both have their flaws, especially the stroke , Some Facts for Individual Golfing average. The stroke , Training Impact... Are Impact Indicators Any Good? average is simply defined as the average number of strokes , Fitness Exercises Can Help You Drive the Ball Farther and Straighter taken per round. The big problem here is that the average takes no account of each course's difficulty and has less value when comparing scores between players , The Dramatic Effect Of A Stretching Exercise For who have competed in different tournaments. , Your Swing Is Good Enough Therefore, the stroke , Your Swing Is Good Enough averages does not take account of the strength of field or the difficulty of the courses , 5 Keys to Mental Toughness for Junior Golfers played. A player , Putting Practice 101 shooting five under par over 72 holes , Club, Do You Know Which One is Most Important? in the Russian Open at Le Meridien Moscow Country Club , Your Own Swing, The Foundation, & How Low You Score would apparently rate better than a player , Fitness Exercises Can Help You Drive the Ball Farther and Straighter shooting four under par over 72 holes , Stretching Secrets to Improve Performance in the US Masters at Augusta. Any pundit worth their salt knows that this is not the case, as the Augusta National is a far tougher course. , Tips For Left Handed Golfers Stroke , Exercises Don't Have To Be Grueling averages are only relevant when comparing performances on the same schedule of courses. , How to Take Strokes off your Game by Mastering the Mental Part of it Scoring averages provide a better guide to a golfer's ability than stroke , - Do You Have The Right Swing? averages. The scoring average is a weighted average that takes the stroke , 5 Keys to Mental Toughness for Junior Golfers average of the field into account. It is computed by adding a player's total strokes , 5 Keys to Mental Toughness for Junior Golfers to an adjustment, and dividing by the total rounds played. The adjustment is computed by determining the stroke , Fitness Exercises Can Help You Drive the Ball Farther and Straighter average of the field for each round played. This average is subtracted from par to create an adjustment for each round. The net result is generally pretty good in that you find the players , The Minnesota Trail that you would expect to see at the top of the ratings. The scoring average is not perfect though. The main problem with the scoring average is that it fails to take account of the strength of the field. Within the professional ranks, most players , Controlled Body Movement The Key Essential For Your Game are of a very high standard. Yet, there is still a very discernible difference between the journeymen tour golfers , How to Take Strokes off your Game by Mastering the Mental Part of it and the likes of Tiger Woods. , YouNeed An Ireland Vacation! Some tournaments, , Building a Repeatable Swing Like Tiger Woods such as the majors, attract top quality fields, whereas other tournaments , End Swing Confusion Forever! attract mediocre fields. The scoring average does not take account of this. It assumes that all tournaments , More on Practice attract fields of the same quality. The better golfers , Tiger Woods, the Greatest Ever? -NOT! play in the better tournaments , Putting Practice 101 against better competitors, yet they receive no beneficial adjustments to their scoring averages. The net effect of this is that the scoring average tends to narrow the differential between the best and worst golfers. , It may NOT be your Swing that's Rubbish So where does that leave us? Is it possible to take account of the strength of the competition? Fully adjusted scoring average Well, the answer is yes. For those betting on golf, , The Basics Of Learning it really pays to look at a '?fully adjusted scoring average'. It sounds a bit of a mouthful, but essentially it means ratings based on actual scores, adjusted for the difficulty of the course , 5 Keys to Mental Toughness for Junior Golfers and the relative strength of the other competitors in the tournament. , Mental, Physical, Nutritional, and Biomechanical Preparation for Your Game The system used is very similar to the way in which handicappers rate performances in horse racing. Indeed, this handicapping type of system is probably even more relevant to golf , 5 Keys to Mental Toughness for Junior ers than it is to horseracing, since the size of field in a tournament , My Core Strength Is Just Fine Thank You, But My Swing Needs Help! is so much larger. With over 150 players , Fitness Exercises Can Help You Drive the Ball Farther and Straighter competing in most tournaments, , More on Practice it becomes a statistically reliable exercise to assess the relative strength of the field and work out the best fitting ratings to the result. The ratings presented on www.progolfform.com are fully adjusted scoring average ratings. They work by calculating an 18 hole , Who Invented The Game Of ? scoring average for the tournament , PGA Tour: Season Recap and then adjust them for the relative strength of the field and for the course , Las Vegas s, and the 'Losers' Who Play Them conditions. For example, in the 2005 US Masters at Augusta, Tiger Woods , Top Tips For Beating The Bunker had a stroke , Your Swing Is Good Enough average of 69 for his four rounds. An adjustment was then made to this rating of '?3.50, reflecting the relative strength of the field and the difficulty of the course. , More on Practice The adjusted rating of Tiger Woods , Some Facts for Individual Golfing was therefore 65.50. The same adjustment is applied to all scoring averages of the players , Las Vegas Courses, and the 'Losers' Who Play Them competing the same four rounds in the tournament. , The Minnesota Trail The system throws up results largely as we would expect them. Tiger Woods, , Discount Vacation Package Tips '? Don't Gamble with Your Vacation Vijay Singh and Ernie Els all figure as the top players , How to Win at under this system. They all consistently record low ratings. The ratings don't, however, overestimate one off performances, as a one-off low rating can be set in the context of a string of otherwise weaker performance ratings. Furthermore, a wide margin winner will be given due prominence and a small margin victory won't be over-rated. For the bread and butter, mid-ranked golf , Is Slow Play Ruining Your Weekend? professional, differentiated ratings undoubtedly offer the best guide to their relative merits. They offer the serious punter with a reliable performance guide. The predicted score of players , Chip or Putt? can be compared with others, and direct and quantifiable comparisons can be made. The ratings also facilitate direct comparisons between golfers , Consistency and Scoring playing on different tours. In the modern game, , Mental, Physical, Nutritional, and Biomechanical Preparation for Your there are enough golfers , Some Facts for Individual Golfing playing on both the US and European Tours to help tie in the form on either side of the Atlantic. Therefore, reliable comparisons can be made between the level of form shown by a golfer , The Best Vacation You Ever Had playing on the European Tour and a golfer , The Dramatic Effect Of A Stretching Exercise For playing on the US Tour. But if only it were that easy Other factors are, of course, , How Your Lie Angle Can Change Your Game still at play , Las Vegas Courses, and the 'Losers' Who Them in assessing the chances of a golfer , Consistency and Scoring in a particular tournament. , It may NOT be your Swing that's Rubbish For example, a player , 2006 Trends in High Tech Equipment may be out of form. Certain courses , A Driver Tip To Remember and playing conditions will suit certain golfers. , Don't Get Ripped Off On Vacations Similarly, the fitness , Your Own Swing, The Foundation, & How Low You Score and mental well being of a golfer , Fitness Exercises Can Help You Drive the Ball Farther and Straighter will affect his immediate performance. And then there's luck! Summary Multiple factors are at work when a player , Top Tips For Beating The Bunker enters a golf , Top Tips For Beating The Bunker tournament, and it is extremely tough work trying to assess their chances. Nonetheless, ratings provide a good starting point for making judgements of likely performance. The fully adjusted scoring average provides by far the best starting point available, better than world rankings, money lists, stroke , Tiger Woods Wins Again averages and even scoring averages. For more information on rating professional golfers , Are Conditioning Routines Really Necessary please visit www.progolfform.com.
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