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The Hole Truth: Determining the Greatest Players in Golf Using Sabermetrics
Ever wonder whether Tiger Woods in his prime would have beaten Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan, or Jack Nicklaus in their primes? And could any of them have beaten Babe Zaharias? Obviously, if Bobby Jones were returned to life and health and then given his old hickory-shafted mashie, persimmon-headed driver, and rubber-core ball in a match against Jordan Spieth, the outcome would be foreordained. But what if the impact of the training, equipment, courses, and traveling conditions could be neutralized in order to create a measurement? Now for the first time, questions are answered about the relative abilities of the greatest players in the history of professional golf.
In The Hole Truth Bill Felber provides a relativistic approach for evaluating and comparing the performance of golfers while acknowledging the game’s changing nature. The Hole Truth analyzes the performances of players relative to their peers, creating an index of exceptionality that automatically factors the changing nature of the game through time. That index is based on the standard deviation of the performances of players in golf’s recognized major championships dating back to 1860. More than two hundred players are rated in comparison with one another, more than sixty of them in detail with profiles providing context on their ranking. For the dedicated golf fan, The Hole Truth is an engaging way to see in the numbers where their favorite golfers rank across eras and where current players like Rory McIlroy and Inbee Park compare to the game’s greats.
In The Hole Truth Bill Felber provides a relativistic approach for evaluating and comparing the performance of golfers while acknowledging the game’s changing nature. The Hole Truth analyzes the performances of players relative to their peers, creating an index of exceptionality that automatically factors the changing nature of the game through time. That index is based on the standard deviation of the performances of players in golf’s recognized major championships dating back to 1860. More than two hundred players are rated in comparison with one another, more than sixty of them in detail with profiles providing context on their ranking. For the dedicated golf fan, The Hole Truth is an engaging way to see in the numbers where their favorite golfers rank across eras and where current players like Rory McIlroy and Inbee Park compare to the game’s greats.
328 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 19, 2019
No matter the sport, fans often will argue about who is the GOAT, or greatest of all time. When it comes to golf, that has been difficult to measure – after all, how would Tiger Woods fare with the mashers and other clubs used in the days of Harry Vardon? How would Patty Berg do against Anika Sorenstam? Author Bill Felber has attempted to answer this question using a common mathematical function and a little extra work with advanced statistics in this very interesting book.
While the title touts the use of “sabermetrics”, the tool used to measure golfing greats across the entire history of professional golf is the standard deviation. Felber does explain this and other statistical terms in the book and how it is similar to a popular new statistic in baseball, wins above replacement or WAR. Even if a reader is not a mathematician, he or she will enjoy reading about many of the sport’s legends and how that golfer stacks up against others using the measure of standard deviation.
Fortunately, the rankings are fairly simple and straightforward, as Felber explains in the beginning of the book. Like the number of strokes, the lower a golfer’s standard deviation from the average of the field, the better the ranking. There is a formula for number of strokes derived from the standard deviation if the reader wants to compare strokes since that is how the score is kept. That is not necessary to enjoy this and understand the accompanying charts for each golfer portrayed.
Felber covers all eras of golf, both men and women and because the standard deviation is measured for each golfer against his or her peers, a fair comparison can be made between Kathy Whitworth and Bobby Jones, for just one example. There is a measure for each golfer for their career and their peak, which is defined as the best five year stretch. No spoilers here to reveal who ranked at the top of those two categories, but like with any other list, statistical or otherwise, it does produce some expected results, some surprises and a huge source of information that can be used to settle debates.
Because the book is formatted to give the reader a short description of each golfer’s career success or failure in the major tournaments (noted at the beginning that the statistics are limited to majors) it is easy to read and has plenty of accompanying charts and statistics. It can easy be digested at one sitting or used as a reference for quick information on a golfer. Golf fans will certainly want to add this one to their bookshelves.
I wish to thank University of Nebraska Press for providing a copy of the book in exchanged for an honest review
https://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/20...
While the title touts the use of “sabermetrics”, the tool used to measure golfing greats across the entire history of professional golf is the standard deviation. Felber does explain this and other statistical terms in the book and how it is similar to a popular new statistic in baseball, wins above replacement or WAR. Even if a reader is not a mathematician, he or she will enjoy reading about many of the sport’s legends and how that golfer stacks up against others using the measure of standard deviation.
Fortunately, the rankings are fairly simple and straightforward, as Felber explains in the beginning of the book. Like the number of strokes, the lower a golfer’s standard deviation from the average of the field, the better the ranking. There is a formula for number of strokes derived from the standard deviation if the reader wants to compare strokes since that is how the score is kept. That is not necessary to enjoy this and understand the accompanying charts for each golfer portrayed.
Felber covers all eras of golf, both men and women and because the standard deviation is measured for each golfer against his or her peers, a fair comparison can be made between Kathy Whitworth and Bobby Jones, for just one example. There is a measure for each golfer for their career and their peak, which is defined as the best five year stretch. No spoilers here to reveal who ranked at the top of those two categories, but like with any other list, statistical or otherwise, it does produce some expected results, some surprises and a huge source of information that can be used to settle debates.
Because the book is formatted to give the reader a short description of each golfer’s career success or failure in the major tournaments (noted at the beginning that the statistics are limited to majors) it is easy to read and has plenty of accompanying charts and statistics. It can easy be digested at one sitting or used as a reference for quick information on a golfer. Golf fans will certainly want to add this one to their bookshelves.
I wish to thank University of Nebraska Press for providing a copy of the book in exchanged for an honest review
https://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/20...
September 5, 2019
Interesting take on evaluating the best players throughout history using statistical methods. I found the background information/stories on the players just as interesting. Not completely convinced by the conclusions though, mainly based on my own "sniff test": an obscure LPGA player that had a brief period of success, (Yani Tseng), rated the 5th best of all time? Really?
February 11, 2020
A very interesting way to compare players across generations. I don't know if I agree 100% with all of the conclusions, but he makes a compelling case for why he ranks players as he does, and is pretty open where the system just isn't built to handle certain players due to a lack of accurate statistical information.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews