Well if we're going to start measuring golfers by how much money they've made....

Lol.

A rare gem in this thread of turds.

Not surprisingly, but I disagree with this. Clutch IMO is performing better than your relative competition does in the same scenario. If the tendency is for performance to suffer in a given scenario yet one player remains constant, that player is by definition resilient comparatively. So yes, he is clutch. The heat doesn’t phase him.

That said, I do believe that certain aspects of being in a state of flow can heighten ones game and have them perform a couple % points above raw expectation. Do I think your example of a 40% putt becoming 50% is accurate, no. I do believe that a player who is really in the moment can use the extra focus and raise their game from 40% to 42%+ on a given putt. Or conversely choke and fall to 35%.

The fact you don't get this simply shows how little competitive golf you‘ve played. That or how truly argumentative you are. It’s pretty amazing to watch actually, kudos.

Since we're not on the same page regarding what is and what is not clutch, can you start by giving me an example of an actual event that has occurred you would consider clutch?

Oh dear God no...

lol brocktoon. My sentiments EXACTLY

Personally, I would define clutch in golf as not choking.

Unfortunately, I am a pretty big choker. During pressure shots, I am a completely different player. I don't mean to sound like nitBo, but I don't need a statistician to tell me whether or not I handle pressure well. Going further with this, just me alone is proof enough that choke exists, even if it is at an amateur level.

WSOP bracelets are a pretty good analogy to golf majors. Nowadays we have far more talented players entering tournaments but also there are more possible tournaments to win a bracelet in. It would be absurd to compare todays players to Stu Ungar and Doyle simply based on the number of bracelets.

NXT has provided some awesome statistical evidence, and at this point all the Jack GOAT team can say is "But they both said majors are the measuring stick." Well, again, if the game has completely changed in terms of talented players, that it just isn't a reasonable way to evaluate things.

I think this has been discussed before in detail, but why can't we just use scoring metrics relative to competition to determine who is better?

Hey, I’ve gone out of my way to simply move on and try to extend olive branches in the last week or so.

At the end of the day though he is simply so abrasive and argumentative it is exhausting. I have a friend here in Dallas that actually reminds me perfectly of him so I now have an inside joke of putting a face to NXT’s name.


It’s hard to be on the same page as you with regards to clutch when you don’t think it exists. You do agree now that people choke which almost by definition means that people can be clutch, even if that is simply performing to standard capabilities down the stretch. Here are a few things I find clutch:

Woods owns a 54–4 record when holding at least a share of the lead after 54 holes,[7] and 42–2 record when holding the outright lead.[8]

Woods is the only player to have won all four professional major championships in a row, accomplishing the feat in the 2000–2001 seasons. This feat became known as the "Tiger Slam".

Woods is 14–1 when going into the final round of a major with at least a share of the lead.


Here’s a good question since you seem to think that it is simply about expectation. If there was a putt that would keep you alive would you rather have 2013 Tiger or 2013 Colt Knost take the putt? Keep in mind that Tiger won 5 times last year.

I know you want a raw figure that shows X players make rate goes up in such and such scenario, and I’ll find that as I get a little further into the 3 million ShotLink records. But honestly, have you ever played in a golf tournament and been in contention? Have you ever actually experienced anything in life? I know we’ve gone over your lack of ability to visualize, but seriously man, you need to get a grip on how the world works and stop trying to argue about everything. It will make you happier, less stressed, and probably more intelligent. Just my .02.

the ShotLink data only goes back to 2004 so it is just raw scoring average comparisons. Unless you are fine with what NXT has put up earlier ITT, which is pretty spot on with regards to this IMO.

See, more olives.

You guys should have your clutch debate via PM. Failing that, start a separate thread. Or get a room.

Personally I am enjoying NXT getting owned because he is so wrong about what makes a golfer great or not. And yes BOTH Tiger and Jack clearly have what makes a player great to the point there isn't even a close third.

They both don't wilt in high pressure situations hardly ever. That is extremely rare and a real thing which NXT somehow seems to absurdly dispute.

The only problem I see with people saying well Tiger and Jack dont wilt down the stretch under pressure is that it isnt really fair to say that. They are just better than the field and if they play to their averages they are going to win, not much more to it than that. It isnt like all these golfers are of equal skill level and some are just more clutch than others. NXT did provide some interesting and good research and data though. Definitely something to consider since our eyes can be very deceiving at times

The olive branches aren't so good when you mix in some elitism and belittling.

I do agree that people choke, but I don't view believe that just because someone doesn't choke means they are "clutch".
Well as we all know Tiger deals with pressure pretty well so he would likely perform around his yearly average, so this decision would be on determining how well Colt Knost handles pressure. With Colt and Tiger ranking so close in SG putting it wouldn't take much of a choke factor for Tiger to be a pick over Colt.

However change the scenario to 2013 Greg Chalmers vs 2013 Tiger Woods and I would take Chalmers. Chalmer's choke factor could certainly reduce his performance, but it's still possible for him to putt better than Tiger who performs at his normal expectation.

I assume in the 2nd scenario you are taking Tiger bc he's in your definition more clutch than Greg Chalmers?


In response to this. From the paper...
Tiger's performance with the lead in majors is fairly easily explained by his skill advantage over the other players and the fact that he is either tied for the lead or has a cushion of strokes.

From another paper that is very interesting, if Tiger played an event with just his 10 best competitors he would win roughly 30% of the time.

On average how many people had a legit shot going into the final round of Tiger's 15 54 hole leads in majors? 6? 8?

So he wins 30% of the time vs the top 10 guys, it's not inconcievable that vs 6 to 8 guys that aren't all top 10 players, and whom he is at worst tied against and at best has a 1-4, his winning percentage is very very high. Likely not the 93% that it currently is, but with only a 15 round sample to go off us there is not much to learn there.


Yes I have played in plenty of golf tournaments, a few more in the past few years since the poker world blew up. I actually won a small field professional event last fall(35 or so pros) that included some of the best golf professionals from the state of Georgia. Coincidentally on the 16th hole I knew I was close to the lead at and proceeded to dump it in the water on a 200 yard par 3. Made double. Then make back to back birdies to win. Man I'm so clutch.

Believe me, I'm well aware of how the world works, but if someone says something to me that doesn't make sense I don't just believe them. The human mind is a funny thing especially when people try to make inferences from their own experience.

For example at the end of last season, or maybe the year before, Foley asked Justin Rose what he wanted to improve the most about his game. Rose replied his wedge game because he felt it was pretty terrible all year. Then using Broadie stats, Foley pointed out to Justin that he actually led the Tour in strokes gained with his wedges.

So I don't like to rely on people's opinions or experiences which are very often wrong(ball flight laws hint hint), give me some actual evidence and if I'm wrong I will accept that fact.

Certainly I can't be the only one entertained by this specific sequence of events.

1. I state I don't believe "clutch" exists
2. Ship and other disagree based on personal experience
3. I post a golf specific paper that refutes the existence of "clutch" in golf, stating
3. Ship and other disagree still
4. I ask Ship for some example's he would consider "clutch"
5. He gives 3 examples, 1 of which (Major conversions with 54 hole leads) was SPECIFCALLY analyzed in the paper and found to be explained solely by Tiger's skill advantage over the other players and not from being "clutch"
6. He gives me advice on how to be more intelligent

What a sequence of events

The Major analysis can be very easily extrapolated into why he also closes out Tour event's at similar rates.

Major 54 lead conversions- 14 for 15 or 93%
Regular tour conversion- 36 for 39 or 92%

Tiger's clutchness must explain his closing % being 1% greater in majors despite majors being harder to win! Or maybe it's just more proof that people give the majors too much credit.

The 3rd example he gives is Tiger winning 4 majors in a row. Another thing that can be explained using math.

Looking at Tiger from 1999-2001 his win % was 38%(just using PGA Tour data, he played 60 events and won 23 times).

If Tiger had a real a winning % of ~38% during that time period, what were the chances that over the course of those 12 majors(from 1999-2001) he would have a streak of 4 straight wins? It's 12%

What if his real win % was more like 25%? Then over those 3 years he had a 3% chance completing a Tiger slam.

Was what Tiger did rare? Yes.

Does that make it "clutch"? Not in my opinion.



Yea I'm totally getting owned.

Cliffs of what is going on here

NXT using real data and research to prove points while others are using personal experience and opinions backed up by 0 actual facts. Sounds like just another average week here.

Cliff of Cliffs

Dont argue with NXT

Well if anyone knows anything about their opinion or experience being flawed it’s you. Remember your great insights prior to reading your new golf stat bible?

You even went so far as to explain your position using the new SGP statistic. So not only was your intuition wrong, your logic was wrong with how you applied the data.

I actually think I’m on to something here now that I think about it. This must be the reason you think that ALL experience is useless. It’s because you have no ability to interpret your own experience and form correct opinions. Even when presented with the correct data you can’t interpret it correctly. You simply need somebody else to create a formula for you and give you the data to plug into a spreadsheet a 14 year old could make. I will say that if somebody can get you to the input stage you are great with stats, you simply can’t create a new theory on your own or apply any findings once the problem is solved.

You had to wait 3 years for Broadie to finish his book to finally give you countless stats to post as though you are a stat god. Instead of being so hard headed and dogmatic about everything you could simply try listening and thinking things through a bit to come up with the answers yourself. That will allow you to possibly see when you are wrong and let you learn things a little quicker. On the plus side, if you are correct you can use their argument against them to sway opinions (like I have here). That’s how you debate.

Then, maybe, it could have been you writing that book with forward thinking ideas. Let’s see some original content and ahead of the curve thinking from you for a change, you’re capable of it!



Oh, well if your opinion is what we are going off of you’re right, I likely won’t be able to sway you.

Actually, wait, what? “Not in my opinion”. Don’t you remember your post from about an hour ago? I know it’s just above, but let me refresh your memory again:

Man I have NEVER seen someone use multi-year old posts about another person as often as you do. What an accomplishment.

Was I wrong? Yes.

Have you heard of this phenomenon called learning? I was young and just getting back into golf at the time of that post, I mistakenly relied on the opinions of most golfing authorities that putting was more important. I have learned now, oh wait, you appear to think I'm incapable of learning.

If you went back to 05-06 when I first got on 2+2 and looked at some of my poker related insight, I guarantee it would be LOL worthy. Just some awful advice at the beginning. No way that guy made any money at poker, no way he can learn how to play poker.

Did I learn how to play poker and turn professional in September of 08?
Yes

Did I win over $250,000 in the 2.5 years before Black Friday?
Yes

Wait how is this possible?

Did I apply all of the stuff I learned from various poker sources to become one of the better MSNL players in the world during my poker career?
Yes
There is quite a bit of original content in this thread alone from me, you even referenced some yourself in the following exchange
I don't know of anyone who has compared raw scoring average comparisons. I generally will search to see if someone else has already done the number crunching and then just post links/screenshots/sources. Since I was unable to find where someone had done that, I did it myself.

You are great at cutting off quotes to make your points stronger. Honestly, have you thought of a career in politics with your mudslinging ability? It is really quite a gift.

Here is the full quote
You are right in that I don't rely on opinion, but I very much accept opinions backed by facts. My opinion on Tiger not being "clutch" would be the latter, opinion + facts.

So rather than politicking and throwing more mud around from years ago. Can you address how your 3 clutch scenarios are a complete joke?

Ok, how’s this?

Hey, look, I just found this stat online and it is pretty revealing about how clutch Tiger is:

This is why debating you is fun. You say that yes, Tiger’s performance is in fact clutch and that a 93% win rate with a 54 hole lead is above his expectation. You then say that a 15 round sample isn’t big enough, but it’s not 15 rounds DUCY? You asked for an example of clutch which I posted and you edited here for us, remember?

Is 54 events enough data? Ya know, since that was what I showed as my example of clutch when you requested it, not that his performance in the majors vs regular tour events was better. Simply that he closes out ALL events amazingly. I posted his win rates of both regular and major events to create your bigger, more relevant sample size, not to show one vs the other. I’m not even sure how you could take it any other way, you simply get so enraged and caught up in “gotcha’s” that you can’t think straight.

Furthermore, yes, I think that winning the Masters to capture the Tiger Slam was pretty clutch, even though he was the runaway favorite. Nobody else has ever done that, seems pretty clutch to step up and do it the one and only chance you have to do it.


See how this works now? Thanks for creating the 93% figures for me!

I think so too, more olive branches we can agree upon!

Love the bolded.

Just wow. I have no clue what Tiger's "expectation" is, which is why I said it is "likely" Tiger's "expectation" is not the actual 93% we see. Do you understand that over a 15 tournament sample that there are only 15 possible winning % and that the chances of that winning % matching up to his true "expectation" is incredibly small.

Let's say Tiger's "expected" major win % when leading/tied after 54 holes is 90%. So if he wins 14 of 15 for 93% he is "clutch" and if he wins 13 of 15 for 86% he is a "choker? That is great.

How about some math on how stupid that stance would be.

Assuming 90% win % and a sample size of 15 what are the chances that Tiger closes our 14 and 13 exactly?

SURPRISE, each total has the exact same chance of happening 32%

LOLOLOLOLOLOL

2 things have equal chances of happening and you want to label them differently. It was his ability to perform in the "clutch" that allowed him to win 14 out of 15 majors despite the odds of him having 13 being the exact same. Pure gold.

TIGER WAS SO CLUTCH WHEN ROCCO MISSED THAT 15 FOOTER FOR THE WIN AT THE '08 US OPEN ON THE 18TH HOLE OF THE PLAYOFF.

AMAZING.

The fact that you appear to think 54 events is enough data to be able to nail down "true" win %'s and other probabilities that have quite a bit of variance is incredible.

Did you know that if you flipped a coin 54 times, that 90% of the time your sample wouldn't indicate the "true" odds that the coin flip is a 50/50 chance.

Can you go flip a coin 54 times and then come back in this thread and argue that you have discovered the new "true" odds of a coinflip the 90% of the time you dont get 27 heads and 27 tails?

You are so bad with understanding variance, and it's potential impacts that is amazing.
You appear to think that anytime someone does something above "expectation" they are "clutch".

Let's go back to where Sergio makes 40% of his 10 footer generally but, theoretically since Sergio is such a "choker", his make % when a major is on the line drops to 30%.

Now let's say Sergio get's 10 chances at a 10 footer for a Major in what remains of his career. He misses 9 of them and makes 1. (totally conceivable that with a 30% chance of making a putt you might only make 1 in a sample of 10)

Is Sergio "clutch" the 1 time he makes? Despite his "expectation" over a 10 footer for a major being lower than his normal make %?
No I don't see how it works... because it's not working. Just more theoretical failure on your part with thinking the 93% figure somehow proves what I'm saying wrong.

Let's assume "clutch" exists for a moment and put Tiger over a 10 footer for a Major.

You say you think he can go from 40% make to 42% make. Just a few questions...

1. How are you able to measure this? Since nobody else is able to.
2. Does your head explode the 58% of the time he's going to miss the putt, despite him being able to raise his expected make % and becoming "clutch"?
3. But wait, how can he be "clutch" if his "expected" make % was 42% and he made the putt 0%, thus running performing below "expectation"?

I am curious about something, and it would go a long way to clearing up my confusion about the math being used in this thread.

From this statement, it seems like you are saying that if a player has a 10-foot putt, that you can assign a percentage of how often that player will make that putt. Is that correct? And if it is, then explain how you could possibly know this. I know this may seem like something basic to you, but it really has me confused.

I can see how a statistic could appear saying an individual player has, in his career, made about 40 percent of his 10-foot putts. But you are aware that it has very little bearing on the actual putt that is being attempted, right?

For example, if a player has attempted 1,000 10-foot putts and made 400, it's easy to say he has a 40 percent chance to make a 10-foot putt. But it's also pretty clear that there were hundreds of subtle variations in the conditions surrounding each putt. A 10-footer on the first hole on Thursday is a lot different than the same putt on Sunday to win the tournament.

(I would use straight versus breaking putts as an example here as well, but let's all pretend I never brought that up.)

Can you just left me know if I am misrepresting your position? Because I have really tried to wrap my head around it, yet I don't seem to be able to.

I mostly agree it is very difficult to assess a players "expected" make % based on history, though if you had the data it would be easier to be confident about their make % on say a 5 footer vs a 20 footer due to likely a much larger sample size.

I also have a feeling it would get very difficult to get within a few % points of someone's "true" make % without a pretty big sample which not even Shot Link could provide you with for a single player. Your best bet is to look at PGA Tour averages from certain distances and adjust for how much better of a putter a player is.

For example, according to Shot Link the average Tour player make 38% of their 10 footers. Go look at make % on the PGA Tour from 10 feet for 2013. It ranges from 58% for the leader to 20% to last place. Are either of these likely "true" representations of those individual players make %s? Hell no. VARIANCE

For fun let's look only at guys with 54 or more attempts from 10 feet(since Ship thinks that is a sufficient sample to glean very precise and accurate %s from). Shockingly, limiting to just 54 or more attempts only lowers the range down to 54% to 29%. Are these likely "true" representations of those players make %? Still hell no.

How do I know? Because I can pull the data for make % from 9 feet for those same players with more than 54 attempts. If the 10' putt data was accurate you would expect the 9' data to be accurate and likely similar to 10' foot data since there is not much difference between the 2 distances. The PGA Tour average from 9' drops to 34%. So likely the best guys from 10 feet should also be the best from 9.

Amazingly, there is very little correlation between those players make % from 10 feet vs 9 feet illustrating how worthless the sample size of the data is.

LOL


This depends greatly on how big the sample is and if you had access to very large samples(we don't) I strongly disagree that it has little bearing on the actual putt.

Let's just say there was no way to know a players expectation over a given putt. If we don't know the "expectation" of a single player(despite access to data on previous attempts) how can you possibly determine the following important #s

1. The players "actual" make % on a particular putt after witnessing exactly 1 sample.(Hint his "actual" make % is not 100% if he makes and 0% if he misses, think of how if you flip a coin and it lands on heads the "actual" odds of flipping heads doesn't magically become 50%)

2. Other players make % on that that 1 particular putt vs their "expectation"(remember of course we have already conceded to not being able to calculate someone's "expected" make % accurately on a given putt). We need to know this so we can compare it to our hero's "expected" vs "actual" relationship to see who handles the heat better.

The inability of anyone to answer either of these 2 questions completely destroys the "clutch" camp especially given Ship's definition of "clutch" as
We can't even calculate exactly how our hero is "expected" to do in a certain scenario, how can we possibly be expected to know the "expectation" of his competition?

Hopefully I have cleared some things up for you.

Actually, no I don’t, and I had a quick paragraph on that but didn’t put it in so you would say this exactly and let me illustrate more to you.

You do realize this isn’t poker with million hand databases, right? I can’t find the stat for most career 54 hole PGA Tour leads, but I have a hunch Tiger is somewhere near the top. This is yet again where your inability to think abstractly or make some reasonable assumptions hurts you. You are correct, there is no chance of mathematically proving that a given player is “clutch” because no player will ever have a statistically significant number of rounds in the heat of battle to 100% deduce they are clutch.

However, I am comfortable with the notion that over 54 occurrences Tiger walked away with the trophy 93% of the time as being indicative of *something*. I feel like we have hit this point in a debate before. As it stands now you say that Tiger’s number of trials is insignificant and thus irrelevant. If the player with presumably the largest database for us to utilize isn’t big enough, then I’m not sure what to do. Feels like when you had to resort to “well, if a putt has higher EV it doesn’t count”.

Once again, VERY hard to debate a person who simply says “well that doesn’t count then” when shown their position is flawed at a minimum.

Is it possible that nobody knows the right question to ask? The quote from the paper you posted states “it is possible that Tiger Woods can OUTSHOOT his opponents”. I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that whoever wrote that piece is not a good player based on the wording “outshoot”. Anyone who can crack an egg would never use that verbiage. So yes, I think it is highly possible they did not know the correct question to ask, and even if they did ask the right question they did not have the ShotLink data to support any arguments.


Saying nobody else could measure this based on a paper written by a bad golfer who had ZERO data other than 18 hole scores that they threw on a distribution curve is beyond laughable. Surely you can at least see that. FFS man, the curve they created for Tiger has him with a better chance of shooting 58 than 79 in the final round of a US Open and PGA Championship when forming their proofs on the last two pages.

Do you think that quasi normal distribution curve they tried to create for 18 hole scores might be a tad flawed?

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL 58 > 79


Oh yeah, while we on amazing stats, you beat low limit online poker, gee, how did you do that?

This is what makes me chuckle when skimming NXT's walls of math. This is golf, stats certainly have bearing on things but it's not the end all be all of the sport. There are intangibles, unquantifiable things that affect the players on the course in different circumstances. This is why for example the leader in the all around stats category doesn't always win the player of the year.

BO