The first edition of Golf World magazine each year is my favorite of the year. It’s a stathead’s dream as GW previews the upcoming PGA Tour season by providing extensive individual statistics of each Tour player from the previous season. It’s always interesting to compare each player’s financial performance on the Tour for the previous season with the statistical analysis of what he was doing well and not so well.
One particularly interesting GW comment involved Jeff Maggert, the longtime Tour player from The Woodlands. Maggert made over $845,000 in prize money during the 2007 season, but that was only good enough for 123rd on the Tour money list and a 255 ranking in the World Golf Rankings. GW’s comment on Maggert highlights one of the dramatic changes in Tour golf over the past 14 years:
“Maggert’s driving distance average (284.2 yards) ranked tied for 142nd on the Tour, but it would have led the Tour in that category as recently as 1994.”
And this Ron Sirak article over at Golf Digest provides even more perspective on the dominance of Tiger Woods:
“There have been 44 majors played since Tiger turned pro. Besides Woods, five players have won multiple times: Phil Mickelson and Vijay Singh, both with three; and Ernie Els, Mark O’Meara, and Retief Goosen, two apiece. Add their totals and it comes to a dozen–one fewer than Woods.”
Tom,
Another side note on the Tiger Era is a statistical analysis that only spans one decade. In 1997, there were only 18 players who made more than a million dollars on tour. In 2007, 99 players made more than a million. In 2007, Mathias Gronberg barely kept his PGA Tour card by finishing 125th on the money list with 785,000 dollars. In 1997, that would have been enough to be in the top 30 on the money list and go to the Tour Championship.
It is amazing how far the tour has come in ten years.