Can a player
make it shooting Par on Tour?
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Is par a good score on the PGA
Tour?
How good is
par on the PGA Tour? Will shooting par make the cut?
Will a player shooting par make enough money to pay
expenses? This newsletter will answer those questions.
Have you ever
visited the PGA Tour's website, www.pgatour.com?
Most golfers have. It's filled with tons of information
about tour players from their scores in tournaments,
money made, greens hit, average distance, etc. For
someone big on statistics, the website provides tons
of satisfying numbers.
A golf pro friend of mine asked me
a few months ago, "Yours a stats guy, Ken. Have you
ever analyzed how good of a score par is on the PGA
Tour?" Well, I hadn't, until now.
So, all I did was go through the list
of PGA Tour events thus far this year and recorded
what score made the cut and how much money a player
would make if he shot even par. For a 72 par course,
even par would be a score of 288. For a 70 par course,
even par would be a score of 280. I assumed the player
shot even par for the first 2 rounds in determining
making cuts.
For example, in the Sony Open in Hawaii,
the second event of the season (the first was the
Mercedes Championship, an invitational), par for
the course was 70 and thus a player shooting par
would
shoot
140 after two rounds. The 36 hole cut was 143 (+3).
Thus, a player shooting 140 would make the cut. If
the player had a final score of 280 (even), he would
have earned $21 120, a pretty nice paycheque.
Conversely, at the AT&T Pebble
Beach National Pro-Am, the 36 hole cut was 142 (-2)
and thus the player would miss the cut and earn nothing.
I omitted tournaments that are invitationals,
other than the Masters. Some invitationals don't
have a cut and all players make money. Here's what
I found, assuming the player plays in all 42 events:
A player shooting even par in the first two rounds
would make 24 cuts.
A player shooting
even par total in each event would make $2 111
425 which would rank him 20th on tour, assuming
he plays in the Masters and US Open.
A player shooting
even par total in each event would make $1 999 425
which would rank him 24th on tour, assuming
he plays in the US Open but not the Masters.
A player shooting
even par total in each event would make $941
425
which would rank him 82nd on tour, assuming he plays in the Masters but not the
US Open.
A player shooting
even par total in each event would make $829 425
which would rank him 96th on tour, assuming he doesn't play in either the Masters
or
the
US Open.
A tour player must be in the top 125
to maintain his card for the next season. Currently,
the 125th player has earned $582 000. The average
number of events played is 24.
If we assume the even par shooter plays
in 24 of the 42 events, he would earn approximately
24/42 = 57% of the amounts highlighted above. Assuming
not playing in the US Open or Masters would yield
about 57% of $829 425 = $427 772, falling short of
maintaining full player privileges on the tour the
next year. The par player would need to play 70%
of the events (29) to earn a top 125 spot.
The minimum expenses for a year on
tour is about $150 000. A par player could, therefore,
earn a decent living on the tour if he played enough
events in a year.
Shooting par
on the PGA Tour is still a very good, respectable
score.
I'd appreciate any comments you have. Email them to
me at probablegolf@yahoo.ca
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A list of resources that have been used to produce
this newsletter can be found on my web site here.
The focus of my
site is to utilize science and math to lower your score.
New technology is one way to achieve this, but to be
honest, the technology is one small piece of the
puzzle.
To actually improve
significantly, we all need to:
1. Improve our swings
using CD Interactive, Hit
Down Dammit!
2. Learn how to swing
simpler like the Iron Byron with the great coffee table
book, Swing
Machine Golf!
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The
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course through knowing how shot patterns and reading the
elements and course better.
Click on the links above
to take a look at ways that I personally use myself and
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Hope I provided some useful ways for to
become better prepared for you best golf season
ever.
Ken Tannar
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